God's Knight: Dimension Jumper: Inheritance
by thewriterman91
Summary: When I wake up in a place that shouldn't exist, with powers I didn't have before falling asleep, with a responsibility I didn't ask for, all because of The Big Man Upstairs, I figure out that I need to ensure everything goes according to His Plan. Did I mention that I have a helper I never anticipated?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Boy, wake up!" I felt my shoulder being shaken as I groggily looked around. It was a man's voice, not my Mom's telling me to wake up for work. And this man certainly didn't sound like my Dad, who I knew was currently overseas. And he certainly wasn't waking me up for work.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Boy, get up!" the man said once again.

I rolled over on what could only be a stone floor to try and look at the man above me, only to have a sword pointed at my throat. I was only in my shorts that I wore to bed, no shirt, so I was pretty obviously defenseless. But, apparently, that didn't matter to the man, who I now realized was not a man, but a dwarf. He couldn't be a man, simply because of how short he was.

I put my hands above my head, showing that I wasn't hiding any weapons on my person. Although I was sincerely wishing that I did have at least my pocket knife on me. But that would have been taken away when they searched me.

"Who are you boy?" the dwarf asked.

"A traveler from beyond your comprehension master dwarf." I replied quietly.

"A traveler, eh?" he began. "You wear strange clothes for a traveler."

"When one such as I travel from place to place, strange clothes become a necessity." I say.

I'm buying time for myself, while also trying to put an air of mystery around myself. If I am where I think I am, then I need to make sure that my mind stays secure. But something tells me that I won't have to worry about that. I don't know why, but I know that to be true.

"Where do you hail from then, stranger?" the dwarf asks.

"A land so far beyond your maps that the distance would be incomprehensible to your mind."

"Do you take me for a fool?!"

"No, master dwarf, simply someone who has not been educated in the fields of study that are commonplace where I am from. It is not an insult to you my good sir, but simply a means of preventing you from feeling so lost that up is down and right is left, and in is out."

A glare directed at me, along with the sword in his hands make me feel uncomfortable, but not enough to where I am feeling in fear of my life.

"May I stand, master dwarf?" I ask politely.

A grunt, followed by an order to do so slowly is my reply, along with a mumbling in what was undoubtedly dwarvish.

As I slowly stand, I look around at my surroundings, noting that I am in a tunnel that is quite high, and that my immediate surroundings are lit by a lantern that doesn't seem to have a flickering flame.

'Farthen Dur, I assume?' I think sarcastically to myself.

"What is your name stranger?" the dwarf asks.

I hesitate for a moment, knowing that I can't give them my real name, before I go with an alias that I came up with off the top of my head.

"Call me Dragon." I reply.

A deep rumble meets my statement, before I ask if I can know the dwarf's name.

"Mine name is Orik." he replied.

Only then did I realize it. Long braided beard, chain mail cut off at the shoulder, a war axe on his back, and a helm with a hammer surrounded by twelve stars on his head, of course it was Orik.

I decided to use a dwarven proverb, partly to scare him, partly to amuse myself with the way he would react, and partly because I knew he would take me to Ajihad since I couldn't sense either of the Twins around me.

"The stone changes Master Orik. Algaesia faces a change so profound that it could rip the very world apart." I said. Orik's face paled quite rapidly. "I am here to make sure that the changes go well, and that everything stays intact."

Orik began speaking in Dwarvish to his compatriots before turning to me and beckoning for me to follow. He hands the sword back to another dwarf, and then begins walking.

As I walk, I begin thinking, and as I do, I realize that I know a great many things that I know I did not when I went to sleep. And not only that, but I can feel a power flowing through me, something far stronger than the time I got electrocuted fixing a fan for my sister. But it is not hurting me, in fact, it seems to be helping me. I can feel the power creating strength in my limbs, my senses becoming far sharper, and my mind moving even faster than ever.

I realize that it is chakra running through me, and I know every single jutsu that there ever supposedly was or is. I know all the hand signs, and I realize something faintly disturbing. I have all three types of doujutsus in my eyes. I'm going to have to keep my skills secret, and make sure that I can get things done in time to ensure everything going according to the plan that I am making up as I go through these tunnels. My plans having been finalized, I realize that they are not perfect by a long shot. It's going to be a lot of improvising at certain times, but I'm confident that I can pull it off. I'm going to have to, or else things are really not going to be good.

Subtly, I create a Kage Bushin with its Rinnegan activated, and have it hide from sight using Meisai Gakure no Jutsu so that I can know what is going on around me since the clone's vision is linked to my mind.

Orik leads me to a room with a thick door, and shows me inside. Looking around, I know that it is the room that Eragon, Murtagh, Arya, and Saphira will one day be in, though I have no idea when that will be.

"You will sleep in here until we know what to do with you Dragon." Orik grunts.

"That's quite alright Master Orik." I begin. "Please tell Ajihad that I am eager to meet him, and wish him and his daughter Nasuada a pleasant day, or evening, depending on whichever it is at the time you tell him, and that I have information regarding the information leaks in his organization."

Orik looks at me, stunned, before he swings his axe into his hands, holding it near my neck before exclaiming: "How do you know the name of the leader of the Varden?!"

I laugh, saying "Because you just told me, and also because I know a great many things that no mere mortal should know."

He curses, bringing his axe closer to my neck. Faster than even an elf could see, I hit two pressure points on his arms, grasp the haft of his axe before it drops even an inch, and spin it around so that it is in my hands with the axe blade near his neck. Orik cries out in a combination of shock and pain, and all the other dwarves are too shocked to do anything.

"Though you do not trust me, I trust you, because I know that you will one day become a great force to be reckoned with throughout Algaesia." I state before sheathing Orik's axe back on his back before continuing while pointing at his arm. "I can fix that for you Orik."

Orik glares at me before declining roughly.

"That is on you then. It will take three days before you get mobility back in that arm, and another five before it is back to full strength." I reply.

A suspicious glare is sent my way before Orik thrusts his shoulder forward, his arm dangling uselessly at his side. I crouch down and take hold of it with my left hand, and a green light envelops my right hand. Orik stiffens as he sees it, but then relaxes when he senses feeling returning to his right arm. Within thirty seconds it is done.

"Tell Ajihad of this, and let him know that I am as good at fighting as I am at healing, and that even this was only the very tip of the mountain." I say.

Orik looks at me, startled, before he quickly turns around and walks away, the other dwarves following him and the doors slamming shut behind them.

Sighing, I jump up and lie on the ceiling almost thirty feet off the ground. Closing my eyes, I begin meditating, searching my mind for clues as to how I got here, and why I am now suddenly capable of things I've only read and dreamed about. Instead, I'm in for the shock of my life, as I get pulled into what I can only assume to be my mindscape.

Instead of a field or something like that, I am drifting in space. I am surrounded by darkness, but I can see points of brilliance around me, some brighter than others. Below me, I see a planet. It is dark though, and I can only see it because it seems to be eclipsing its sun from my view. Then, a lance of light shoots from the planet below me, pulling me to its surface, but the impact doesn't kill me. Looking up, I see something I never thought I'd ever see.

I saw Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Chomei, Gyuki, and Kurama, the One through Nine Tailed Beasts respectively.

"Hello, Worm." Kurama said.

I decided to play a bit.

"Hello Kurama, how're you?" I asked, feigning indifference. In truth, I was freaking out, wondering how the nine most powerful chakra entities had ended up inside of me.

"He knows?!" Shukaku exclaims, stunned.

"Yes, I know, now why are you all here in my mind?" I reply, letting my voice become laced in killing intent. They all look at me, stunned, before Matatabi leans down and gets in my face, the flames that make up her body heating up my skin.

"You are interesting for a human." she begins. "Being able to hold all nine of us inside of you, and for some reason, we have been convinced by a higher power that we must follow you in order to save this world."

"I won't tell you to follow me, but I might occasionally ask for your power to help me keep this world going the way that it is supposed to." I say, knowing that viewing them as sentient beings and not tools or objects of power is my way into becoming one of them. And I'm right, for they each sit back on their haunches, surprise plain on their faces.

"I know that you are all beings in your own rights who were wronged in the past, and though I never thought that I'd ever become a jinchuuriki much less one with all of the tailed beasts inside me without them combining into the Juubi." I say.

"You know of that?!" Isobu shrieks.

"Yes, I know of that. I know many of the things that happened in your world." I reply. "But that's unimportant. I just want this world to reach peace safely while saving as many lives as I can."

A few moments of silence is my reply before one by one, each of the Biju agree to lend me their strength in times of need.

"Before that time comes though, I need to separate your wills from your chakras, don't I?" I ask.

There are a few more moments of silence before Chomei confirms my suspicions.

"Alright then, what are we waiting for?" I ask.

Right as I finish my rhetorical question, I begin concentrating my mind into this part of my mindscape. At any one time, I have about five or six trains of thought running at once, so in reality, I am only giving a fifth or sixth of my attention to my surroundings. But when I want to, or need to, all those trains of thought can combine into one, and there is almost nothing stopping me from puzzling out just about anything. At that point, my mind is so sharp that nothing escapes a full mental dressing down of threat levels, personality flaws and attributes, anything, and it only takes at most five seconds total.

As such, I see a need to combine my thoughts, and soon, I see copies of myself flying through the atmosphere of this world before colliding and being absorbed into myself, each time a train of thought being absorbed, my mental projection's size increases exponentially until I am only slightly taller than the Biju in front of me. They stare at me in surprise before grins cross their faces.

"I haven't had a good fight in a long time" Kokuo snarls before storming towards me.

I leap over the charging creature before one of my hands grabs one of his tails. I flip through one handed hand signs quickly before landing on my favorite hand sign, tiger, and in my head, I say "Ninja geijutsu: Sutorēnāu~iru- Ninja Arts: Will Strainer"

And with that, I drive a spike of chakra through his tail, pulling his chakra away from him, while pushing Kokuo's will back into his own body. In seconds, I have the power of the five tailed dolphin horse as part of my arsenal, and am down one of the nine original opponents. The rest of the Biju are stunned by how quickly I took out one of their number. Then I had an idea.

'This is my mind, the rules of this universe are mine to control as I see fit.' I think. Then, my mind made up, I make my physical body disintegrate into dust and settle my consciousness into the very world that the Biju stand on. I watch for a moment in amusement as the beasts look around, trying to look for me.

"You won't find me that way boys and girls!" I laugh into their minds. They flinch, looking around for me, and before they react, I turn the ground they stand on into their greatest weakness. For Shukaku, it is water, keeping him from being able to move. For Matatabi, ice begins creeping up her fiery body. Isubo is surrounded by a column of fire, and Son Goku is surrounded by an adamantine wall. Saiken is surrounded by sand with copious amounts of salt mixed in while Chomei is held in place due to my increasing the gravity around him fivefold so that he can't fly away. For Gyuki and Kurama, I simply meld celestial gates around their bodies and tails, and initiate the Will Strainer jutsu once again on all of them at the same time.

This time, it takes me almost fifteen minutes to absorb the massive amounts of energy from all eight of the Biju at the same time. After that, I release them all, and after almost another half an hour, they have enough energy to move back to their original positions, looking warily at me after I made a body of myself that they could see. Soon, Kurama speaks.

"How did you defeat us so easily?" He asks.

"Simple. My mind, my rules." I reply easily. "Plus, I know your weaknesses, how to overcome them, and how to make those weaknesses into strengths."

They stare at me, before slowly nodding their heads.

"Now, I have a mind to explore, so if you don't mind, I'm going to be setting up barriers and protections around it, though if anyone from this world that we are in even know how to navigate in my mind, that will be their own peril. If you wish to leave this planet and go exploring my mind, you may do so. Just please try to stay away from my memories. You won't like what you find there if you do, and I'd rather not have the headache you guys would cause if you learned everything I knew." I say. With that, I fly up from the surface of the planet, into the space between planets before looking around and shooting off in another direction, moving simply because I will myself to.

It takes me hours to organize my mind in a way that I like. I know that in days, weeks, months, or maybe even hours, I'll rearrange it just to do something to my mind. With all that done, I decide to surface, realizing that while my mind had been doing things, my body had been sleeping on the ceiling, and it is now morning. Below me, Orik is staring up at me, wonder and suspicion evident on his face.

I sit up with a yawn, stretching as I get up on the ceiling before greeting Orik.

"How does one do such a thing, Dragon?" he asks.

"That is for me to know, and you to find out piecemeal." I reply, dropping to the floor in front of Orik.

"I assume that Ajihad has called to meet me?"

""Yes, you, and one other that turned up here mere hours after you." is his reply.

I look sharply at him, wondering who it could be. Nobody else that I had been friends with in my home world had ever shown as much of an interest in this world as I had, so I doubted that it was anyone I knew. But since it was just one person, I knew that it wasn't Eragon and Murtagh and Saphira with Arya in tow.

"You're both oddities. She showed up during a thunderstorm in a flash of lightning, and you showed up without anything announcing your presence." Orik says. "She is an oddity in that she is as rough worded as a veteran soldier, and I've never heard a young lady that swears like she does. It took a great many of us to subdue her long enough for us to get her into a holding cell."

"I would imagine so." I say, smirking. But inside of my head is another matter entirely.

'What the bloody hell is Thalia Grace doing here?! If this is before she gets turned into a tree, then she's only twelve, but he didn't make any remarks about her age, so that's not it. If this is when she is the tree and in limbo, then how does she have a body? Or is it after she comes out of it? Ugh, this is giving me a headache to think about. Enough for now.'

A few minutes later after I have been lead out of my cell and am following behind Orik before he stops in front of another door. He bangs on it, declaring that he is coming in and does not mean any harm. Then he waits a moment before walking in. I wait, and about two minutes later, Orik walks out with a girl behind him.

I'm eighteen, and this girl has to be at least as old as me, yet, she matches all descriptions of Thalia Grace I've ever read about. Choppy black hair, electric blue eyes, black jeans, black shirt, black leather jacket, and skull earrings... yep, it's Thalia alright.

"Hello Lightning Rod." I say when her eyes land on me.

Her eyes widen, but then narrow in suspicion when I wink at her.

"And who are you?" she asks suspiciously.

"A friend to those who are good, and living Tartarus to my enemies." I said. Her eyes widen in surprise. "And no, that wasn't a random reference. And yes, I know of where and how you come from. I know not how you got to this land, and I know not how I got to this land, but seeing as how we seem to be mutual strangers, how about we cover each other's backs? I know of events to come in this land, and I'm sure you'll need some reference point to refer to to keep yourself sane." I monologue.

Thalia stares at me dumbfounded. "Let me think about it." is her response, and then Orik is commanding us to follow him. She gives me a questioning look, and I just nod for her to follow him. After almost an hour of walking, we came in sight of Tronjheim, and my clone that I had made the previous day dispelled, showing me it's memories. Thanks to that, I now knew where all of the shortcuts all over the city to various parts were. That would come in handy when I needed to get places quickly and I didn't feel like teleporting to get everywhere.

Knowing that I had a limited amount of time to do it, I changed my eyes into the Sharingan before morphing them straight to the Eternal Mangekyo. Catching Thalia's attention, I got her to look me in the eye before I activated the Tsukiyomi and sucked her into a Genjutsu that would only last a second. Since the Tsukiyomi compressed three days into three seconds in the victims mind, I decided to use just one second to talk to her in her mind without anybody else knowing.

"Thalia," I said.

"Yeah?" she said, her head swinging up to look me in the eye. And that was when I activated and brought her to a copy of Camp Half Blood, though everything was in a shade of red and black. Of course, she immediately started freaking out when she saw this.

"Don't worry, we're just in an illusion that I made." I began. "There's some stuff that you need to know before we get to meet the leader of the Varden."

"Oh?! And what's that?!" she shrieked, hysteria clear in her voice.

"They don't believe in the gods as you know them. Hell, Greek, isn't even a word to them. And if we were to tell them that you are the daughter of a god, they'd throw you to the tunnels faster than you could say 'Hades.'"

"How do you know that stuff?!" she yells.

"Because in my world, the gods aren't real. In my world, you're nothing more than a story book character. As is this world and all of its inhabitants." I say.

That stops her cold for a moment.

"Yes Thalia, I come from the base world, where everything is normal, there are no gods, there is no magic, no extraordinary creatures, none of that. I don't know why or how I got here, and I don't know why or how you got here, but for better or for worse, we're in this together."

"But, if this is just a story book world to you, then you should know what's going to be coming right? I mean, assuming that the series of books was finished before you came here, right?"

I chuckle to myself.

"Thankfully, yes, but that doesn't mean that everything is going to go the way that it was in the books if I have anything to do with it. And since me being here in the first place has already disrupted the timeline for this world already, and your arrival has disrupted it even more, I don't think we should hold back in trying to save as many lives as we possibly can. That was my original plan, but with you here, I think that between the two of us, we'll be able to save a lot more than just me by myself."

She looks at me for a moment before nodding.

"I guess I can stand behind that. I'll help you. And, do you happen to have any good music?" Thalia asks.

"Not on me per say, but I've got a fair few in my head, fully recorded perfectly." I say.

And it's true. For some reason, every song that I've ever liked seems to be in my head in the same quality as when I listen to it in reality.

"That's cool, but how does that help?" she asks.

"This world is known for the fact that telepathy is a fairly common thing with the magical races, and seeing as how you're a demigod, and I'm something else entirely, I'm sure that telepathy is somewhere in our heads. This is just an illusion that is normally used for torture. It effectively compresses all of your worst memories, or the memories of the caster, and puts them on a loop, lasting for what seems to be three days in your mind, but in reality, is nothing more than three seconds. I figured that this would be the best place to give you this information, and do it quickly. It's been less than half a second out in the real world, so once we come out of this, we won't have taken more than a quarter of a step since we came in here."

"Okay, that's pretty cool, I've got to admit." is her reply.

"Yeah, now, remember, before we came in here, I called your name, and you replied with 'Yeah,' so when we get out, I'm going to say never mind and that'll be that, okay?"

"Fine. Let's go."

With that, I cancel the Tsukiyomi, and we come back to our bodies.

"Never mind." I say.

Thalia blinks at me for a second before mumbling a gruff "Whatever." and continuing with following Orik. As we traveled through the Dwarven city, many of its inhabitants would stare at us, not sure how to react to us, though many of them looked suspiciously at me since I wasn't wearing any upper body clothes and had no shoes. And at Thalia with her odd looks, though I am certain I saw a few young teenage boys looking at her with more than courtship in their minds.

'Thalia would take that about the same way that the Dwarves will take Isidar Mithrim being broken- not well in the slightest.' I look at her out of the side of my eye before continuing the thought. 'Though, I can understand why, with how fit and beautiful she is, she can catch any guy's eye if she truly wanted to.'

I continue my musings for a while, looking around at my surroundings.

As we go, I see that the people are a hard, tough people. All the men have daggers or knives at their waists; many were armed for war. The women carried themselves proudly, but they seemed to conceal a deep seated weariness. The few children and babies stared around themselves with large eyes. I knew that these people have endured much hardship and that they will do whatever is necessary to defend themselves.

The Varden have found the perfect hiding place. Farthen Dur's walls were too high for a dragon to fly over, and no army could break through the entranceway, even if it managed to find the hidden doors.

As we neared the city-mountain, I saw that the white marble of Tronjheim was highly polished and shaped into flowing contours, as if it had been poured into place. It was dotted with countless round windows framed by elaborate carvings. A colored lantern hung in each window, casting a soft glow on the surrounding rock. No turrets or smokestacks were visible. Directly ahead, two thirty-foot-high gold griffins guard a massive timber gate, recessed twenty yards into the base of Tronjheim's base, which was shadowed by thick trusses that supported an arched vault far overhead.

The walls were lined with fluted pillars of blood-red jasper. Between the pillars hulked statues of outlandish creatures, captured forever by the sculptor's chisel. Thalia looked around at the statues, and I could see by the tenseness in her face and the stiff set of her shoulders; she was expecting the statues to come to life and begin attacking her. I laid a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped, and looked ready to attack me before she saw what had happened. I gave her a reassuring smile, showing her that everything was fine.

It was at that point that the heavy gate rumbled open before us as hidden chains slowly raised the mammoth beams. A four-story-high passageway extended straight toward the center of Tronjheim. The top three levels were pierced by rows of archways that revealed gray tunnel curving off into the distance. On the ground level however, the archways were barred by stout doors. Rich tapestries hung between the different levels, embroidered with heroic figures and tumultuous battle scenes.

The mile long hall ended in an arch flanked by black onyx pillars. Yellow zircon three times the size of a man capped the dark columns, coruscating piercing gold beams along the hall. We were now in a circular room, perhaps a thousand feet across that reached up to Tronjheim's peak a mile overhead, narrowing as it rose. The walls were lined with arches, one row for each level of the city-mountain, and the floor was made of polished carnelian, upon which is etched a hammer girdled by twelve silver pentacles, like on Orik's helm.

The room was a nexus for four hallways, including the one we had just exited, that divided Tronjheim into quarters. The halls were identical except for the one opposite us. To the right and left of that hall were tall arches that opened to descending stairs, which mirrored each other as they curved underground.

The ceiling was capped by a dawn-red star sapphire of monstrous size. The jewel was twenty yards across and nearly as thick. Its face had been carved to resemble a rose in full bloom, and so skilled was the craftsmanship, the flower almost seemed to be real. A wide belt of lanterns wrapped around the edge of the sapphire, which cast striated bands of blushing light over everything below. The flashing rays of the star within the gem made it appear as if a giant eye gazed down at us. Looking over, I saw Thalia's eyes practically bulging out of their sockets as she took in the sight of Isidar Mithrim.

Orik led us to the right-hand hallway, and we followed it for several hundred feet, then entered a smaller corridor. The guards remained around us, despite the cramped space. After four sharp turns, we came to a massive cedar door, stained black with age. Orik opened the door and gestured for me and Thalia to enter, and so we did, with him, and only him, following us in. We had entered an elegant, two-story study paneled with rows of cedar bookshelves. A wrought-iron staircase wound up to a small balcony with two chairs and a reading table. White lanterns hung along the walls and ceiling so a book could be read anywhere in the room. The stone floor was covered by an intricate oval rug. At the far end of the room, a man stood behind a large walnut desk.

His skin gleamed the color of oiled ebony. The dome of his head was shaved bare, but a closely trimmed black beard covered his chin and upper lip. Strong features shadowed his face, and grave, intelligent eyes lurked under his brow. His shoulders were broad and powerful, emphasized by a tapered red vest embroidered with gold thread and clasped over a rich purple shirt. He bore himself with great dignity, exuding an intense, commanding air.

Ajihad looked first at me, and then at Thalia, running a calculating eye over each of our forms. That was when I realized something. Instead of only five foot eleven, I have to stand at almost six and a half feet tall, and I've had to have put on almost a hundred pounds, putting me at about two hundred and fifty pounds, and none of it is fat, it's all muscle. Super charged muscles, but muscles nonetheless. That's a relief to me, seeing as how I've been about twenty pounds underweight for my entire life.

Then there's Thalia, who is about five foot ten, and if I had to guess, she's about a hundred and fifty pounds, and lithely muscled at that. Though, those muscles don't seem to stop her from being a properly curvaceous young woman.

I look back at Ajihad defiantly, knowing that he won't take kindly to that. He narrows his eyes at me and then narrows them even further at Thalia, who seems ready to explode with questions.

"Though I am sure that you want to do a thorough interrogation of me and my friend here Ajihad, I haven't had breakfast yet, and if I don't get three square meals a day, I'm liable to rip some heads off in sheer frustration. So please, let's make this as quick, painless, and clean as possible. The sooner we're done here, the sooner I get breakfast, and the sooner I become more pleasant. So please, let us begin with the formalities." I say, breaking the silence.

I can tell that Orik is stunned by what I said, but that doesn't stop him from digging his weapon into my back.

"You dare speak to our leader that way?!" he mutters after a moment.

"Master Dwarf, you remember what I did to your arm yesterday? I can do that to your whole body, regardless of whether or not you have a weapon to my back, ready to pierce me at a seconds notice." I say. "I am far more irritable at this moment than I was last night, so I suggest you pull that weapon away from me before you lose something valuable."

"Peace, Dragon." Ajihad interrupts before Orik can begin shouting. "I realize that you haven't had breakfast yet, and neither have I-"

"Oh, I know you haven't, I was watching you and Nasuada earlier this morning to make sure that nothing of ill effect took place against you." I cut him off. "But that doesn't matter to you does it?"

Ajihad stares suspiciously at me for a moment before he sighs and sits in his high-backed chair behind his desk and gestures for us to do the same in the armchairs in front of it. I sigh before folding my legs up underneath me... in midair, using Himitsu no geijutsu: Gravitonic kōshō- Secret Arts: Gravitonic Negotiation to hang there. Everybody stares slack-jawed at me before slowly sitting down in their own chairs, looking warily at me.

"My first question, Dragon, is how you happen to be doing that." Ajihad asks. "I know that most spell casters would have died from doing a spell such as that, and soundlessly as well is what disturbs me even more. Obviously, you must be very powerful magically to be able to do such a feat so easily."

"I don't use magic." I say, earning many raised eyebrows. "I am using something as unrelated to magic as Dwarves are to Elves. I will not go into how it works, but suffice it to say that where it comes from, it is as common as magic is to an elf."

Ajihad shakes his head before turning to Thalia.

"And what about you young lady? How is it that you came to be here?" he asks.

"You're guess is as good as mine at this point." Thalia says. "The last thing I remember is dying after having flaming whips wrapped around my arms while some hellhounds tore into my legs, and another monster was busy trying to gut me."

Again, there are many a raised eyebrows at this revelation.

"Let me explain." I say. "Thalia is from a land as different from mine as a human and a dragon are. In her land, the gods that the ancients worshipped are as real as you are. These gods had an almost too healthy libido, and so would often come down from the heavens and procreate with the human that they happened to fall in love with, even if they were married to another god."

"That's not possible!" Orik interrupted. "A god's presence would incinerate a mere mortal!"

"Yes, if they showed the human their true, divine form, then yes, the humans would have been incinerated. But anyways, eventually, the human's technology began advancing, and they forgot the gods. Except for a few here and there. And for the next five thousand years, they continued having children with the mortals. Most often, the half god, half mortal, also called demigods, would be lucky to live past their eighteenth birthday because of all the monsters that their godly parents had made due to petty fits of rage and jealousy. The demigods would be required to kill the monsters, but they wouldn't die. Since the monsters didn't have any souls, they would reform in what was essentially hell, and come back, more pissed off than before.

"The gods created a camp that was safe from all monsters for their half-blood children, since the godly blood in their bodies gave off a scent that the monsters could track. Since Thalia is the daughter of the King of the Gods, Lord of the Skies and God of Lightning, she is one of the most powerful demigods, and her scent is even stronger than the children of some of the other gods. Only the brothers of the King, the King of the Underworld, Lord of the Dead and Riches, and the King of the Seas, Earthquakes, Stormbringer, and Father of Horses have children as powerful, if not more powerful than the children of the King of the Gods.

"The children of the gods would have powers over certain aspects of the godly parent's domains, such as a child of the sun god, the Archer Twin to the goddess of the moon, being able to produce vast amounts of light as well as having a natural ability with the bow and arrow to deadly effect. Thalia here is so powerful that her uncle, the Lord of the Dead, let out some monsters from the Land of the Dead in order to kill her.

"You see, the three brothers swore an oath almost fifty years before her birth that they wouldn't have any more children since their children were changing world events too much. Of course, the Lord of the Skies and King of the Seas forced him to swear the oath after they won a war against him, and yet, the Lord of the Skies was the first one to break it. Since he is immortal, he got off lightly. Thalia here ended up bearing the brunt of the curse the oath demanded in compensation, and as a result, she was cursed with bad luck until her death. Though, when she died, her father, feeling sorry for the fate he had brought onto her, decided to keep her out of his brother's clutches by using her soul as a powering force to protect the camp she died protecting from the small army of monsters she just told you about, while transforming her body into a tree. She was twelve at the time, and she's spent about six years as a tree until she came here somehow, as well as getting a body.

"It is unknown how she or I got here, but what we have decided is that we are both willing to help free this land from the clutches of the Black King Galbatorix. But, we will let you know now that we will only follow your orders as far as what we know is right. Things are changing here in Algaesia, and we need to remain free to move around and help shape the necessary things to ensure this land reaches peace."

I stop, having finished my monologue, and wait as Ajihad, Jormundr, and Orik try to digest what I have said.

"If this is true, then we stand in the presence of a princess, do we not?" Jormundr asks, obviously getting ready to bow to Thalia.

"Yes and no." I say. "She is a princess in the idea that she is the daughter of the King of the Gods, and yet she is not because she is not the daughter of both the King and Queen of the gods. Think of it as royalty having a child with a consort. Yes, the child is the child of the King, but because the mother is not married to the King, the child is not in the actual running for the throne once the King abdicates or passes on."

Ajihad was looking at me, an odd twinkle in his eyes. I wasn't sure what it was, but I figured I could wait to find out what was going on in that brilliant mind of his.

"And what of you, boy?" Orik demanded.

"And what of me...?" I mused, putting a hand to my bearded chin. "In my land, I was just as normal of a human as it gets. In my land, there is no magic, even this form of energy that I use now was not present there. Technology was our greatest asset. We had machines capable of flying almost a thousand leagues in about six hours, despite a headwind."

They all stared at me, slack-jawed, save for Thalia, who merely nods.

"My land has advanced enough to where farmers make up a mere five percent of the population, and it is more common for everyone to have a job, be they man or woman. And even then, out of the hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, they only have to work forty, although some have to work more than that because not all jobs pay the same, and the cost of food and other living expenses are so high. It's not a perfect system, but it's worked for about two and a half centuries. In my land, there are no dragons, no elves, no dwarves, no urgals, no werecats, no magicians except for those who use sleight of hand to trick the audience into believing they used magic for their tricks.

"Again, I don't know how I got here, but from what I know, I am now capable of using something similar to magic in its versatility, yet as different from it as an elf is from a dwarf. What I am doing right now is the mere tip of the iceberg with my abilities. I am trained as a warrior, a fighter in the dark who uses whatever techniques I must to defeat my enemies."

I drift back in the air, looking at Ajihad carefully, waiting for a response, watching his face take on a contemplative look.

"We can help you with your cause, at least until the Rider arrives." I say. "When he is ready to leave for Ellesmera, that is when we will leave as well. There are things that I must teach him, and they are things that only I can teach him. Thalia here will help me teach him these things as we travel to the land of the elves where he will complete his training."

Thalia looks at me sharply, but I ignore her for a moment, instead focusing on Ajihad and trying to figure out if he would let us help him. Then, I had a thought.

"You haven't found out who the betrayer to the Varden is, have you?" I ask.

Startled faces show that I am correct.

"It is the Twins. That is how they are capable of reading all the minds of every person to come into Farthen Dur and not discover who it is." I pause before continuing. "They seek power, and they feel they don't have enough of it here in the Varden. They sought out Galbatorix, and were promised power in exchange for information. That is why your supply boats from Jeod have not made it to Surda, and why they have not had any survivors."

There is a moment of silence before Orik begins cursing in his native language, and Ajihad looks ready to have Jormundr behead them the next time he sees them. Of course, Jormundr looks ready to comply all too happily with that order that hasn't come yet.

"If you would wait for a moment, I have a simple solution for this." Silence falls, and everyone in the room looks at me.

"As proof of my temporary loyalty to you until the Rider leaves for the elves, I could obtain their memories of betraying the Varden, and all of their subsequent law-breaking, and then assassinate them in such a way that it seems like they never existed in the first place. It would not be traceable back to you, or even me."

Ajihad is silent for a moment before he asks me how I would obtain their memories.

"That is for me to know. I fear that if the Twins were to passively read your mind after this meeting before I get to them, they will make it that much harder for me to do so. Also, if I were to tell you how I plan to assassinate them, I fear that you will lose your breakfast."

"Can't be any worse than what I've done to the Furies and those Cyclops's I've had to kill." Thalia said.

"Yeah it can," I challenge. "Whenever you kill those they just disintegrate into golden sand and dust, although you have plenty of experience killing monsters, you have no experience killing people. I'm going to have to train you on how to do that. In the meantime, Ajihad, I'll get to work on bringing the evidence to you. By the time it gets to you, the Twins will be only a memory themselves."

I waited, knowing that Ajihad was probably going to say something to me, although I already know that he's going to let me have my way with the Twins, I was merely waiting for him to tell me that Thalia and I were fine to become a temporary part of the Varden.

"Dragon," Ajihad began. "You and Thalia may become a part of the Varden until it is time for you to leave with the Rider. I leave you to discover the evidence of the Twins's betrayal and their execution."

"Alright then Ajihad," I said, extending my hand for him to shake. "We have a deal."

I turned to Thalia then. "Thalia, follow Orik to the training grounds, and learn how to fight against men. Since you are already a skilled fighter, you have merely to change where and how you strike, and before you know it, you will be just as deadly a fighter as I am. Orik, she has her own shield and spear, so you won't need to find her a weapon to learn to use. Just don't be surprised by what her shield looks like."

With that, I use the _Hiraishin_ to flash out of the meeting room. The clone that I had left hidden as a replacement for one of Thalia's jacket buttons has activated its Rinnegan, and I silently laugh as all of their faces take on surprised looks. As it is, I have merely teleported to the top of the mountain within Farthen Dur where Tronjheim lies. I settle down, and begin meditating, reaching deep within myself to look at the chakra that I am able to tap into from all of the bijuu. I begin drawing a small amount out of it, while simultaneously drawing nature chakra out of my surroundings. Before long, I realize that I have achieved sage-mode, and begin extending my consciousness outwards, searching for two beings of power that is exceptionally above what is contained in everyone else.

It doesn't take long at all before I can feel two consciousnesses, obviously the Twins, and predictably enough, they are together. Ironically enough, they are kind of close to the training field, and so I teleport over there, once again using the _Hiraishin_. Thankfully, they are in a tunnel, and so I use a minor genjutsu to mask my presence, and then I slip into the shadows, activating my Sharingan, both to be able to see in the dark, and also to memorize what I am about to do perfectly so that I can show Ajihad in perfect detail.

"You boys have been naughty, naughty!" I chuckle.

They turn around, about to ask who is there, before I silence them forever.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Is this really true?" Ajihad asks, disbelief plainly written all over his face.

"Only as real as you are." Is my reply. It's been a half hour since I killed the Twins, and I've used a mind arts technique to transfer the memory of what happened into Ajihad's mind. Of course, he puked when he finished watching it in his mind, but I didn't really care.

_"__You boys have been naughty, naughty!" I chuckle._

_I am wrapped in shadows, and I watch their eyes flick all over the tunnel in which I am confronting them in._

_"__Who's there?!" one exclaims._

_"__Show yourself!" the other calls._

_"__Hmmm…" I taunt. "No, I don't think I shall."_

_They are silent for a moment, and then the first one who spoke speaks the word for fire in the ancient language, and holds a small ball of fire above his head in the palm of his hand. I decide to play with them a bit, and quickly pull off a minor water technique, spitting a stream of water out of my mouth after converting the air in my lungs to water over the flames, putting them out. They start, obviously unsure of what to make of that last move, before they begin backing up._

_"__Oh no you don't." I say. I initiate a genjutsu, allowing them to see better, before I step out of the shadows. The instant they see me, they try to kill me with magic, but a quick silencing jutsu prevents them from doing that._

_"__Let's play a little game." I say before flipping through hand seals at kage level speeds, leaving them to look like they are nothing more than blurs. I take a deep breath before expelling copious amounts of water all over the floor and all over the Twins. They yell in surprise, but of course, nobody notices since there are all kinds of yells occurring over in the training field. By the time they look back at me, I am slamming my hands into the final hand seal for Ice Style: Demonic Ice Mirrors. The air chills, and then the water spouts up off the floor, forming into sheets of ice, surrounding the Twins._

_I step into one mirrors, while clones that were once invisible step into the rest of the mirrors, causing the Twins' eyes to widen in shock. While they were preoccupied with being in shock, I formed hundreds of senbon out of ice, my clones following my lead perfectly. All at once, all of my clones and I throw our senbon at the Twins, and watch in satisfaction as they are impaled by thousands of senbon needles. The first needle that each of my clones and I throw hit pressure points, ensuring that they are no longer able to move, while the rest hit vital blood vessels and organs, and shred the skin. They are dead before they hit the ground._

_I quickly use _Kōri no sutairu: Sen satsujin no keimusho- Ice Style: Prison of a Thousand Murderers _to encase the bodies in ice. I let the Demonic Ice Mirrors dissipate, and then let my clones disperse, save one, who transforms into a mace whose head is almost as big around as the length from one elbow to the other with my arms outstretched._

_"__Goodbye" I say before smashing the block of ice containing the dead Twins with the mace. It shatters into pieces, and many pieces contain bits of the Twins._

_"__Snake, Tiger, Dragon, Rabbit, Tiger." I mutter, flipping through the hand seals. I inhale, saying, __"__Katon: Hiryū no jutsu- Fire Style: Fire Dragon Technique." Before I let out a stream of fire that takes the shape of a dragon before shooting forward and incinerating the remains of the Twins. _

_A clone that had been hiding in the shadows up until that moment dropped from the ceiling, saluted to me, and then dispersed. This was the clone that I had tasked with extracting all pertinent memories from the Twins. It had used all manner of jutsu from the Yamanaka Clan's mind techniques, and had retrieved the information without alerting the Twins to its presence in their minds._

_"__Ah, I love being a ninja." I mutter. After that, I teleport over to Ajihad's study, and using yet another Yamanaka Clan technique, I show him what had happened._

"So, do you believe me now?" I ask Ajihad.

Ajihad sits heavily in his chair, Jormundr standing quietly behind him, keeping an eye on me. He's been wary of me ever since I teleported into the room quite suddenly and without warning. Not that I blame him necessarily. With a pale face, Ajihad looks up at me, his face showing how stressed he truly is.

"Ajihad," I begin. "Though I know now how you will take this, let me tell you this. There is a battle coming. And you must lead it. And you will. And you will win, simply because of how brilliant of a strategist you are. But despite all of this, you will die in the most unexpected way. You will leave the Varden, but do not be ashamed, because your daughter will take over in your stead, and she will lead the Varden to victory over the Empire. Though this battle to come will be with Urgals, they are merely the puppets of the Shade that comes to fight Eragon, the Rider, when he comes, your daughter will become allies with them, and she will command their respect as a warrior, and a leader. She will bridge gaps in the races of this land, and as a result, a peace you could never have imagined will be brought to pass."

As I spoke, Ajihad looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

"Is what you speak the truth?" he asks, his voice quavering.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, I assure him that I am, in fact, telling the truth. After a moment of holding that position, I remove my hand, and inform him that I am headed to the training field. After he waves me on, I nod, and teleport out, reappearing milliseconds later on the training field.

Having reappeared about ten feet behind Thalia, I can easily see who I guess to be Frederick, the man in charge of training the men of the Varden in the art of warfare. I watch in amusement as Thalia reveals her shield and her spear in their hidden forms, and see how Orik and Frederick laugh at her. All they see is a band around her left wrist, and a strangely shaped cylindrical object.

Walking up behind her, I say quite loudly and suddenly, "You laugh now, but see what happens when she shows them off!"

Case in point, she whirls around, eyes wide, as her shield spirals into being while her spear sprouts into full size, piercing me through the stomach.

"Ow! Thalia, what was that for?" I say, sounding perfectly calm, as if I didn't have a spear head goring me at the moment. Inside though, I'm swearing my head off, not having expected how much pain I'm in.

I step back, even as everyone looks on wide-eyed. Even the people not involved in this conversation who happened to be looking over when it happened have stopped what they were doing. When the spear pulls out of the wound, more blood pours out of me, and I look down, feigning disinterest. Still, everyone is too shocked to do anything, and before Orik can turn and croak out something, I put a hand over my stomach, and begin healing myself, a green glow enveloping my hand as the chakra accelerates my cell replication. Almost a full minute later, I pull my hand away, showing smooth skin replacing the once gaping hole that Thalia had put in me.

"Now then, shall we get underway?" I ask nonchalantly.

Shaking himself from his stupor, Frederick manages something along the lines of an affirmative before turning back to Thalia. Orik, on the other hand still stands, stunned, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging, simply staring at me. I walk forward, and snap my fingers in front of Orik's face, getting him to recompose himself.

"So, I assume that you also do not need a weapon?" Orik shakily asks.

"Actually, I do, but for the time being, I will be fine without one. Even as I am right now, I am deadlier then the entirety of the Varden combined." I reply.

Orik looks at me, obviously fearful of what I am saying.

"Don't worry, I'd be fearful for your enemies, seeing as how they won't know what it is that will hit them in the battles to come."

We are silent for a few moments before Orik asks me if I would like to find a weapon and begin sparring.

"No, no one would be able to keep up with me, so it would be best if I fought against myself." I say, earning a confused look from the dwarf.

I sigh, gesturing for him to get back, and so he turns and walks away several paces. Making that famous plus sign hand seal, I muttered "Kage Bushin No Jutsu." creating a single clone of myself in a puff of smoke. Looking over, I see Orik imitating a fish, and so my clone and I simultaneously begin waving at him with cheeky grins on our faces. After a few second, Orik seems to pull himself back together enough to where he signals for Frederick… rather frantically I might add.

A few moments later, Thalia, Frederick, and Orik are simply staring at me and my clone. Speaking of which, my clone and I have activated our Byakugan, and are settling into the classic Hyuuga Clan fighting style, settling into the horse stance facing to the side while my left hand and arm is extended and pointing down toward the ground, with my right arm following the line set up by my left arm. Being as audacious as I am, my clone arrogantly gestures for me to attack. I smirk before zooming forward, my index and middle finger held close together as I send my attack speeding toward a tenketsu point, only for my clone to block it with a blast of chakra from its own hand.

Seeing as how my Byakugan was active, I could see all around me, and a small part of my consciousness watched in satisfaction as all of the training activities on the field slowly came to a halt as I continued attacking and defending from attacks from my clone. Even as I was moving my arms and hands to attack and defend, my feet were constantly shuffling back and forth across the ground, and my back kept whipping me back into a matrix type position before coming back up and sending an attack for my clone's forehead.

Every time we connected, a burst of pure chakra shot from our hands in a wave, with an echoing boom sounding out each time.

Finally, after almost fifteen minutes of this, I pushed back from my clone, landing almost twenty feet away.

"Enough." I say. "We need to quit show boating."

"Aw, not enough left for one last all or nothing?" my clone taunts.

"Eh, why not…" I say, before extending my right hand out to my side.

Within seconds, I have a fully sized Rasengan floating above the palm of my hand, and I smirk at my clone, who mirrors the facial expression. With that, I sprint forward, bringing the Rasengan in front of my body, thrusting it forward to meet the Heavenly Spin Shield as my clone attempts to defend itself from my attack. I spend almost a whole two seconds grinding my way through the shield before it shatters and I shove the ball of chakra into my clone's stomach. Yet another two seconds go by, and I watch as it disperses into a cloud of smoke, and all of its memories from our spar come flooding into my mind.

I take a deep breath and then look around at all of the shocked faces before they all break into cheers and applause.

Frederick is merely staring at me, slack-jawed, even as he slowly bring his hands together, while Orik has a big fat grin on his face as a human hands him some coins –obviously a bet of some kind- and Thalia is looking at me with a questioning look on her face. She has put away her shield, but her spear is still out, and she seems to be leaning on it. After taking a mock bow, I walk over to Frederick, Orik, and Thalia.

"Where did you learn to fight like that?!" Orik cries.

"Around." I reply, shrugging my shoulders to indicate that the subject is not open for discussion.

"Dragon!"

I turn around to see Ajihad standing on the opposite side of the field, his hand raised to beckon me over to him.

"Wow, I have fans!" I chuckle sarcastically before jumping the fifty foot gap between us in a single bound. Ajihad's eyes grow rather large as I'm in the process of covering the distance, and I can't help but chuckle when I land. In a matter of seconds though, his face returns to its normal stony visage, and I can't help but admire how easily he does it… Although, not quite as well as me, but we're not all perfect, now are we?

Ajihad gestures for Orik, Frederick, and Thalia to approach us, and he decides to wait for them to get to us before continuing.

"Where did you learn how to fight like that?" Ajihad asks.

I chuckle, before giving him the same answer I gave Orik. He looks suspiciously at me.

"What was that blue energy that you and your clone were blowing off every time you hit each other?" Thalia asked. "And what was that ball of blue stuff that you used at the end?"

I laughed outright at that, earning an irritated look from Thalia, making me wonder absentmindedly if she was going to gut me again… on purpose this time…

"Of course you'd ask that question!" I exclaim once I finish laughing. "I don't have time for this, I'm headed off to find the forges unless you'd like to show me where they are Orik?"

I turn away, preparing to step away, when Thalia's hand grabs my arm and jerks me around. Looking down at her, I see electricity sparking from her eyes. Out of the corners of my own, I see Frederick stepping away, along with Ajihad and Orik at the feeling of power that is permeating the air around Thalia as she glares at me.

"I could do this all day long, but I'm not going to because then we'd end up scaring the Varden into pissing themselves into oblivion if we did." I mutter to her. "Tell you what, I'll leave a clone with you to answer some of your questions. When you're done, it'll disperse, and I'll know everything that you discussed with it. How's that?"

Her glare doesn't decrease for a few seconds, before slowly, the electricity leaves her eyes and she releases my arm. It takes a few seconds after that before the aura of power surrounding her finally leaves us, and when it does, Ajihad and Orik slowly approach us while keeping a wary eye on Thalia.

"Now do you believe me when I say that she is a demigoddess?" I ask, looking Ajihad in the eyes, and watch in hidden satisfaction as he shakily nods his head. Then I look toward Orik, and ask him to show me the forges, to which he agrees, before I turn back to Thalia, sigh and make the requisite hand seal, and create a clone, who gently guides her away.

Turning back to the leader of the Varden, I raise an eyebrow at him, seeing as how he still looks shaken by Thalia's display. I will admit, I was a little concerned with whether or not she would create a storm right here in the middle of Farthen Dur. I had the feeling that if pushed, she would be able to, but I didn't feel like being the one that she took her ire out on.

"She truly is the daughter of a god, isn't she?" he asks.

"Only as much as Nasuada is your daughter." Is my comeback.

He looks sharply at me before turning to address the dwarf beside us.

"Orik!"

"Yes sir?" he replies.

"Take Dragon to the forges, let him forge whatever weapon he wishes to have." He commands. "I have a feeling that he will fight with weapons we are not use to having on the battlefield."

"Aye, that is true enough." I say, speaking before Orik can, and confirming for Ajihad that I would not use the things that he is used to.

"Aye, I will show him there," Orik says, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. With that, I give a simple wave to Ajihad before turning to follow the dwarf as he walks towards Tronjheim. We walk in silence the entire way, and I can see just by the way that Orik is looking at me out of the corner of his eyes that he doesn't trust me one bit… Although anyone could have figured that out seeing as how Orik was keeping a hand as near to his battle axe as he could. Once again, as we were travelling through the city, I found myself being the center of a great many stares, pointing fingers, and whispers.

"So, master Orik, what keeps you so tense?" I ask once we are in a tunnel, and out of the view of those on the training field.

"You." Is his gruff reply.

It took us the better part of an hour to reach the forges, and by the time we get there, I'm anxious to get started on my weapons. Don't get me wrong, there's nobody in this world that could best me, but better safe then sorry. After I am showed into the forging room, Orik begins showing me all the different materials that the dwarves pride themselves on, all the irons and steels and combinations thereof that the dwarves think make them so clever.

"Show me your highest quality steel that you have Master Orik." I say.

He turns to look at me, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Why?" he asks.

"Because, Master Dwarf, the weapons that I intend to make must stand up to stresses that anything less than your race's highest quality metals will break under." I begin. "Along with the fact that some of the things I intend to create are secondary weapons used to enhance my abilities with my primary weapons."

Orik looks at me, suspicion clearly glinting in his eyes.

"Look, Orik, if you're really that suspicious of me, I'll let you stay and watch everything that I forge out of your best steel if it makes you feel any better."

Orik is still for a moment before eventually nodding his head yes.

With that, I get to work, and laugh to myself as the dwarves that are already working in the forges look at me suspiciously as I take large quantities of steel and begin melting them down. Eventually, I make about a dozen clones to help out, and again, everybody's eyes are on me, but I don't care, and continue working, hammering, shaping, molding, folding, cooling, heating, and repeating as I continue to pump out weapons. It takes me all day to pump out all of the projectile weapons before I begin working on my main weapon, while my clones continue working on something else to help with the first weapons I made.

By the time my primary weapon is finished, night has passed, and it is morning once again. I plunge my newest weapon into a vat of water, cooling it rapidly until I can touch it with my bare hands. Pulling it out, I take it over to the nearest grinding stone, and have one of my clones spin it up to speed for me. Throughout the process of making this weapon, I have been adding huge amounts of my chakra to it, making sure that it will be capable of everything that I want it to be capable of.

After that, a clone that I had sent off hours ago comes back, carrying many pots of ink, and several metal needles. I set my weapon down, and then stand stock still while my clone begins using an old form of tattooing to ink a great many seals onto my body. The seal on my right shoulder is formed specifically for putting my primary weapon into it, and then the rest of the seals fall quickly into place on my wrists, back, and chest, and thighs.

Two hours have passed in putting the seals on, but now that I am done, I begin sealing away all of my weapons, and even the ink pots and needles are sealed away into my skin.

I wake Orik, and let him know that I am going to lunch in one of the mess halls littered around Tronjheim.

"Wait!-" he cries out, but I have already flashed away.

When I arrive in the mess hall, I find myself surprised that Thalia and my clone are already there.

"Well, look who the cat dragged in." my clone drawls, turning around to look at me.

"Fuck off." I reply, and my clone merely sticks out his tongue before dispersing.

"Whoa, head rush!" I murmur.

_I come into existence, a clone, and I know my orders. Tell Thalia anything that she wants to know. And that's easy. But the thing about us clones is that there is no set formula for the minds of a clone. Some might simply follow the orders to the letter, others might be overly horny, or some might be violent, while other still might go out of their way to break the rules and disregard the orders given by the original._

_I look back to the original, knowing what his other plans are, and knowing that I might be around longer than I originally anticipated when I came into existence. Then I look over at Thalia, and can see that she is obviously jealous of my capabilities. Oh well. With me created, Original turns with Orik and walks away, leaving me at the mercy of a pissed off daughter of Zeus… not pleasant._

_"__Before you hit me, if you do, I'll disperse, and you won't get your answers." I say, seeing Thalia gearing up for a hit. Her eyes narrow, but she slowly relaxes._

_"__Now, what do you want to know?" I ask as I turn and begin walking towards the city behind Original._

_"__How did we get here?" she asks, quickly catching up to me, despite my longer stride._

_It takes me barely a half second for the hypothesis to form in my mind, but I speak it, even if it is in its first draft form, roughly speaking._

_"__This is just a guess at its roughest form," I begin. "But I think that God, like capital-G God, created everything out there that you can read about in books. If you've read it, it exists. I think that the books that we see, are always the 'What if everything goes right?' version of the universe the author peers into. God wants to make sure that everything does go right, so-"_

_"__So he sent a couple of people to this one to make sure that everything goes right." She finishes for me._

_"__Essentially, yes." I reply._

_"__But why us?"_

_"__Good question." I say. "He probably wanted someone – me – that knows a great deal about this world that cares deeply for it, and someone – you – that doesn't know anything about the existence of other universes to come together and find a way to make sure everything goes according to the version of events as I know them._

_"__It sounds complicated, but look at it this way. I would want to go around cleaning up all the messes before they happened here, not caring at all about what might happen by doing so. You are here to keep me balanced and make me think about what might happen if I did."_

_"__That still sounds complicated, but I understand what you're saying." She says._

_We are in the tunnels now, about to enter the city, and Thalia is silent for a few moments. I can see her chewing the corner of her lip from the corner of my eyes, and I find myself transfixed by the movement. A second later, I mentally slap myself and begin looking forward again._

_"__Is there any way home for me, after this is over?"_

_I look over at her, surprised. Then I focus and begin thinking for a moment. I pull all of my new-found knowledge of ninjutsu, and sealing together, put stuff together, take it apart, mix it around, and yet all of the results are the same._

_"__No." I sigh. "Nothing I can do, and nothing anyone here can do, can get you home. Imagine a penny at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Now imagine trying to hit it with another penny while you're standing on the surface of Pluto. That's how much of a chance I'd have of getting you home safely._

_"__Surely it can't be that difficult!" She exclaims, stopping and turning to me. But I'm not looking at her, I'm looking at my feet._

_"__What you don't understand is that even within a universe, there are millions of other universes. Every time a person has to make a decision, a new universe is made, but the base universe, where everything that is supposed to go right, does go right, is impossible to find among all of the other universes that are incredibly similar."_

_"__So you're saying I'm stuck in this universe until I die?" she asks._

_I hear a quivering in her voice, and I finally look up. Her eyes are red and puffy, and full of tears that have over-flowed to stream down her cheeks. Her arms are folded under her chest, and she is leaning against the wall behind her. With a huff, she slides down the wall, pulling her knees up to her head, wrapping her arms around her legs._

_"__Yes. As am I." I say._

_She looks up at that, as if only just realizing then that I am in the same situation she is in._

_"__But, I have friends, friends who will miss me!" she sobs, her tears beginning to stream down faster._

_"__Thalia." I begin. "There's no easy way of saying this, but what's the last thing you remember before waking up this morning?"_

_She pauses for a moment._

_"__I remember…" she shudders. "Getting stabbed with… with… something, and being burned and torn in my arms and legs… And then, I was fine, and I was… content… about everything. And then everything is very dark, and then, I was getting shaken awake."_

_I nod. "That's pretty good. Thalia, you died, defending Camp Half-Blood. Your father didn't want you to go to your uncle, so he used your soul's power to grow a tree that radiated enough power to keep all monsters outside of the camp. You went into Limbo, you were neither dead, nor alive, you simply existed."_

_The longer I talk, the wider her eyes become, and the more tear-filled they are. Something tells me that when I gave the explanation to Ajihad earlier, she wasn't listening… or maybe she couldn't… Whatever was powerful enough to send us here is obviously powerful enough to keep a person from hearing things that they don't want a person to hear until that entity wants that person to know. I sit down next to her, and tentatively wrap an arm around her shoulders. Then she surprised me by leaning into it._

_"__If it makes you feel any better, at least a lot of people are grateful to you, and remember you." I say. "I'll be lucky if my family tries to contact me at all in the next three years, let alone my friends."_

_"__Won't your family miss you?"_

_"__I've been saying for a while now how I was going to drop off the map someday, and not contact anyone, so they'll probably assume that's what's happened."_

_"__You said you had friends?"_

_"__If you can call them that."_

_"__Then why?"_

_"__It's a long story that I don't want to get into right now."_

_I can feel tears gathering in my own eyes, and I lean my head against Thalia's head. I close my eyes and take a deep breath as I feel her gently crying into the crook of my neck and shoulder._

'This is the one side of Thalia that Riordan never showed to us.'_ I think. _'The side of her where she lets out all of her emotions.'

_I take another deep breath, and notice something. A scent like I've never smelled before. It smells like pine tree sap, cinnamon, heat, and ozone. One would think that those four scents together wouldn't be good together, but they are. The pine sap smell binds the cinnamon and heat smells together, while the ozone gives it a kick that practically screams 'Here I Am! Notice Me!'_

'This is Thalia's smell.'_ I realize._ 'This is what she smells like… Gods, I could sit here and smell her all day…'

_It takes almost an hour before Thalia ceases her crying, and another hour before she feels ready to face the public. I spend those two hours telling her what funny stories I can from my life. It's really not a whole lot, only boy in the house, an older and younger sister, dad's always gone for the military, mom's nagging about everything, got shipped off to a program when I was fifteen… yeah… my life's not the best._

_Most of the funny things I tell her are exaggerations or merely entirely made up in an effort to cheer her up a bit, but it works. It's one thing I've always been good at. Lying and making up stories. Telling parts of the truth in such a way that it twists the events to make me look innocent, and merely having been in the wrong place at the wrong time._

_Gods, it makes me wish that this is a dream._

_Eventually, Thalia pulls away, and stands. I stand as well, feeling a pang of anguish run through my body at the loss of contact with her. This has been the longest I've been in physical contact with somebody in over ten years. I'm eighteen now. You do the math._

_"__I'm hungry, do you know where we can eat?" Thalia asks, looking around the tunnel._

_"__Not here, if that's what you mean." I reply. Thalia merely gives me a look. _

_"__Yes," I sigh. "I know where we can eat. Follow me."_

_With that, I begin walking towards the city again, Thalia stalking along quickly beside me. We are silent for a few moments, and it is only just when we are moving through the city that Thalia finally voices the question I've been dreading since starting this conversation._

_"__What happened after I died?" she asks._

_I sigh heavily, before slowly beginning. She doesn't ask any questions, merely lets me tell the story as I know it from the books that I had read about her world. Although she does start laughing when I tell her about how Annabeth and Percy got together eventually. The story lasts throughout our journey through the city, and past lunch, and I'm glad I have something to distract myself. Of course, Thalia becomes extremely mad when I tell her that her brother is still alive, but she soon gets over it when I explain the whole Greek/Roman clash that had been happening for thousands of years._

_I've always had a problem with having too much energy, but I had trained myself to be able to contain all of it until I needed to use it. But now, it seems that I have far more energy than normal, and my years of patience training are beginning to stretch thin, and so I'm forced to rely on sheer will-power to keep myself from going crazy. Although, for some reason, I'm having an easier go of it around Thalia. Go figure._

_It is almost an hour past lunch by the time I am finished with telling Thalia all that will happen while she is dead, and after she awakens from her tree. We are silent for several moments as I let everything that I told her sink into her mind. Finally, she asks me a question, though it is one that I wish she hadn't asked._

_"__What was your life like, before you were put here?"_

_It is only murmured, but she might as well have shouted it. _

_"__It can only be described as boring." I say. I want to leave it at that, but she doesn't seem to accept that answer. I know that Original wanted me to make him seem mysterious, and a little bit dark, but I just can't do that. For one reason or another, Thalia strips away all of my defenses without knowing what she is doing. And I am not putting up a fight._

_"__Well, surely there's more to your life than that." She says, her electric blue eyes boring into my own. _

_"__It's really nothing to brag about," I mutter. "I was a book worm that got sent off to a program. Did nothing death defying, never got into a life or death situation, never met a monster… See, boring."_

_"__That sounds pretty nice to me." She says._

_"__Thalia, what you don't understand is that almost every girl that ever read the books about Percy, they all wanted to trade places with you in a heartbeat. And all of the guys wanted to trade places with Percy, or Nico, or even Jason when they found out about him. I know that being a demigod isn't all flowers and rainbows, I can imagine how scary it would be to be up against monsters with thousands of years of experience when you're not even a teenager yet._

_"__The fear that you would obviously feel, the lack of confidence in facing something a dozen times your own weight and five times as big… Yeah, I can imagine how scary that would be."_

_It is silent for a moment, and then:_

_"__But you don't _know_ what it's like, do you?" she asks._

_I am silent for another moment, before telling her that I haven't._

_"__But, my imagination is so vivid, I can make myself feel whatever I want, whenever I want. If I want to feel the fear I would feel going up against the Minotaur, then I would imagine it so vividly, it would be as if I was really facing it down." I say._

_"__That's not possible." She says._

_"__Is it?" I reply. "Two days ago, I would have merely called you a book character, created in the mind of an older man in order to make a fortune telling the life story of an exceptional demigod, to whom you can barely compare. I would have called this mountain city within a larger mountain the imaginings of a young man with too much time on his hands. I would have called the abilities that I now have impossible. Yet here I am. Talking to you, a real person, in a place as real as can be, with abilities I didn't have yesterday."_

_That seems to make her think for a moment. Then she blinks and looks up at me, a smirk on her face mixed with a cocked eyebrow._

_"__Thanks for reminding me!" she says._

_"__Oh?" I ask, not sure what she could be talking about._

_"__Yeah! What was that blue stuff your original was making during that fight with another one of you clones?"_

_"__Ah, that 'stuff' as you call it, is chakra."_

_"__Chakra?"_

_"__Yes, chakra is a mixing of physical energy with spiritual energy in a balanced way that allows me to mold it into shapes, or elements, or use it to enhance my natural strengths, and reinforces my weaknesses." I say._

_She is silent for a moment, obviously digesting this piece of information._

_"__So, this chakra, you can change it into elements you said?" she asks._

_"__Yes, there are five elements, fire, water, earth, air, and lightning –" _

_"__Wait, lightning is an element?!" Thalia exclaims._

_"__Yeah, I was as surprised as you are now when I first found that out. But that's not all. I can combine elements, such as earth and water to use mud, or trees. Or water and air to get ice, or hurricane style. Or even water, air, and lightning, to get storm style. Or water, earth and fire to get acid, or earth and fire to get lava. _

_"__Then there are special techniques that don't fall under the elements," I continue. "Such as shadow control, bringing drawings to life, transferring my mind into the body of another person, or enlarging my body, or parts of it to create bigger impacts. Or tearing apart the inner workings of the body through only a few light taps to the skin, or healing the body faster than nectar and ambrosia combined, summoning a creature that you've made a contract with, or opening gates within the body that allow you to use a hundred times your normal maximum amount of power._

_Thalia's eyes have been getting progressively bigger the longer I talk, and by now, she stumbles away from me, leaning against a wall and sliding down it till her butt impacts in such a way that can only be described as uncomfortable, if not downright painful._

_"__So you mean to tell me, that you could go toe to toe with a god?!" she finally yells at me after a moment of stunned silence._

_I frown as I look up towards the hole in Farthen Dur so far above us as I think about it._

_"__You know, I've never thought about it, but I guess that in some respects, I could potentially give Ares a hard time in a straight up fight, or even give your father a challenge in control over the winds, or lightning." I say eventually, looking back down at her. Having said that, I walk tentatively over to her and slowly sit next to her, once again wrapping an arm around her shoulders, trying to provide some sense of safety to her. _

_"__What do you say we go back to the training field, and I'll show you a little bit of what I'm capable of? How does that sound?" I say._

_She tentatively nods her head yes, and I stand up, carefully bringing her with me._

_"__You know what teleporting is, correct?" I ask._

_"__Y-yes…" Thalia whispers._

_"__I'm about to teleport us there, and you may get a little nauseous, but just try to keep calm, alright?"_

_"__Alright."_

_With that, I wrap my other arm around her, pressing her body against mine as I inhale her scent from her hair before engaging the Hiraishin, and flashing us to the field. _

_As soon as we're there, Thalia stumbles back from me, one hand flying to cover her mouth, her whole face a pasty green color. Luckily, I had teleported us away from most of the other men training in the field, and we were near a wall, so I merely rubbed Thalia's back as she emptied her stomach of its contents from lunch while encouraging her to take deep breaths. It seemed to work, as within a couple of minutes, Thalia was once again standing straight, but she looked utterly pissed off. She was sparking with electricity, her electric blue eyes seeming to swirl into a tornado laced with lightning as she clenches her fists._

_"__You knew I was going to throw up, didn't you!" she shouted at me._

_I smile impishly, replying, "I told you that you might get nauseous before we came here! You can't blame me if you weren't prepared after I asked you if you were!"_

_"__Why you little-!" she exclaimed, taking a swing at me._

_I merely laughed, jumping back and floating up into the air, giving her the universal "Come here" hand motion, taunting her to follow me into the air._

_I can practically hear her grinding her teeth as she gathers almost visible amounts of wind beneath her feet, sending her rocketing up after me. I laugh some more, shooting away over the field as I flip through hand signs to cover my body in the Lightning Armor so that any lightning bolts she shoots at me won't harm me. It seems to work, for the very next second, an arc of blue electricity hits my foot, sending me spiraling to my right before I regain control, and begin climbing higher._

_I can her the wind whistling under Thalia, buoying her up, making her hurtle along at what has to be nearly a hundred miles an hour, chasing after me._

_I flip around to face her, even as I continue flying away from her, and speed through some more seals before taking a deep breath._

'Katon: Gokakyou no Jutsu!' _I think, before spitting out a fireball nearly five meters in diameter._

_It doesn't even slow her down as she covers herself in a shell of wind before punching straight through like it doesn't even exist._

'Alright, fire style won't work seeing as how the way that she uses it, wind overcomes fire every time, and I can't use wind to block her lightning because she controls wind in addition to the lightning.' _I think to myself. _'I can't use lightning either because she's impervious to that being used to hurt her. I can't use earth because that could hurt her too much, even if lightning overcomes earth every time, and since she doesn't know that, she might try to use wind, which wouldn't do anything against it.

'Water is the only one I can use, but even that's risky because if she electrocutes the water, I'm pretty sure that would potentially kill her since she would be in her uncle's element where she has no power, and her powers could be turned against her. That's not something I want.'

_With that, I look down, and notice that our shadows aren't that far apart. I smirk, look back at Thalia, and with that, slap my hands together into the rat hand seal, and concentrate on my shadow beneath me. My smirk turns into a full blown smile as my shadow stretches out to Thalia's shadow, and when it touches, I stop suddenly, Thalia following suit._

_"__What the hell?!" she shouts._

_"__Shadow Possession complete." I say aloud. "You are now at my mercy."_

_"__What?!"_

_"__This technique I'm using allows me to control my shadow, and reach out and grab the shadows of others, allowing me to control the shadows, and therefore the bodies, of others. Everything I do…" I pause and raise my right hand and wave, Thalia's body following the motion immediately. "You do. Immediately. The only way to get out of this is to get someone else to incapacitate me or distract me long enough for you to struggle free."_

_"__So there's nothing I can do?!" she shouts, more and more electricity sparking along her body, and her eyes are hidden behind a shroud of sheer lightning. A feeling of pure power begins permeating the air, and I can see the wind whipping dust around on the training field. In addition, I see multiple people already pointing into the air, shouting, and many more ceasing their spars to look up at us._

_I can see fear beginning to work its way onto Thalia's face, and I can see her concentrating on freeing herself from the technique. One part of my mind notices that her nose scrunches cutely when she concentrates, but I push that to the side and tell it to save it for later. I have to get her to calm down, but I'm not sure how. I want to use the Tsukiyomi, but I'm not sure how she'd handle getting thrown into a dream world against her will, barring earlier when Original did it to explain how he knew her, especially after she'd spent gods knew how many years in Limbo in a tree her father had turned her into. _

_If I tried the mind transfer technique, I would end up putting my body to sleep, inadvertently letting myself drop almost five hundred feet to the ground below. It would take me half of my bodies fall time to figure out how Thalia's body worked, and by the time I would be ready to fly in to save my own body, my body would have hit the ground and dispelled, leaving my mind trapped in Thalia's body. And I know she would not be happy having a fragment of Original stuck in her head, even if I could relinquish control of her body back to her._

_Running out of time (I was starting to see the beginnings of a tornado swirling around behind her) I decided on the next best thing that always seems to grab an angry person's attention. I had us fly to each other, and at the last second, I have my shadow let go of hers. Then I do what could easily be called the stupidest thing I have ever done. I reached forward the remaining distance between us, and gently cup her chin before leaning forward and resting my lips against hers._

_Either Thalia was so stunned that she forgot to be angry at me, or Aphrodite is having more effect on her than I thought possible, but either way, the brewing storm rapidly died down, as did the winds and the dust said winds had kicked up. Next thing I knew, I saw Thalia closing her eyes and leaning into me before my eyes closed as well and my body reacted on instincts that I didn't know I had. My arms wrap around her, and I can feel her arms wrapping around me._

_Then, Thalia pushes me back, a stunned look on her suddenly very red face as she tries to comprehend what she just did. I guess that my expression is much the same, seeing as how she didn't suddenly get pissed off again and try to kill me again._

_"__W-w-w-what was that?!" Thalia finally asks._

_"__Umm…" I begin lamely. "That was trying to keep you from causing a natural disaster inside of a mountain populated by a few million people."_

_Thalia looks at me, unsure at first, but then, she looks around. I follow her lead and see all of the people below look severely windswept. At least a dozen people are picking themselves up off the ground, and everything that stands up straight on the field is now scattered all over._

_"__You weren't even completely pissed off yet." I say, looking back at her._

_She looks up at me, horror plain on her face._

_"__This is what I can offer you." I say. "I can train you in how to better use your powers, and separate them from your emotions so that you can get pissed without causing a natural disaster, or cause a natural disaster without having to get pissed. Would you like that?"_

_A guilty expression crosses her face as I talk, and once I am done, a pensive expression takes its place. She is silent for a few moments, the only sounds reaching my ears are her breathing, the wind holding her up, and the shouts and complaints of the men on the ground._

_I stare at her, my eyes unyielding as I await her response, unwavering._

_Finally, she looks back up at me, her electric blue eyes sparking, but the pattern of the sparks are different from before. Before, the sparks sounded angry, if it is possible for them to sound a certain way, and now, they sound determined, and the steel-clad expression of determination tells me that she has made her decision. All of the lines of her body seem to sharpen, and tighten, and I can practically hear her thoughts of unwillingness to back down._

_"__Yeah. I want you to teach me all that you can." She says, her words sounding hard as iron._

_I look her in the eyes, looking for hidden doubts, fears, and the like, but most importantly, weakness. I know that everyone has weaknesses, but if there is weakness in decision making, a person is more willing to break promises or go back on their word, which is not what I need, or want her to do. We stare into each other's eyes for a full minute before she breaks eye contact to begin blinking._

_I drift backwards, and as I do, I recline, as if I were sitting in a recliner, all while still looking at Thalia._

_"__Good."_

_My voice brings her back to the present. She had been rubbing her eyes because during our little staring contest, she had her eyes wide open, inviting them to dry out far faster than normal._

_"__You will start your training tomorrow when Original is back and has finished forging his weapons." I say. "While we are training, you will address him as Sensei, or Master, or if you prefer to use Greek, then you will use whatever word translates from Master, into the Greek version –"_

_"__Kyrios!"_

_"__What?"_

_"__The Greek equivalent of Master is Kyrios, just so you know."_

_"__Alright, you may address Original by either Master, Sensei, or Kyrios whenever you are training with him, but when you are not training, then you may address him as Dragon, as usual." I continue. "In training, you must do what he says, exactly as he says it, exactly when he says, or when he says to do it. No questions asked. Outside of training, question him all you want. Other than that, there are no stipulations to being his student."_

_"__That's it?" Thalia asks, blinking in disbelief._

_"__That's it. Now, what do you say we go fly around for a while?"_

_"__That sounds good."_

After that, my clone and Thalia spent the rest of the day flying around, only stopping for meals, and to go to sleep in the mess hall, though my clone spent a few hours after Thalia went to sleep just watching her sleep peacefully.

"Are you okay there Dragon?" Thalia asks, reaching out a hand to help me steady myself.

"Yeah," I breathe. "Yeah I'm fine."

With that, I sit down and begin digging into the piles of food that my clone had gathered for me, knowing after the last group of clones dispersed that I would be coming for food soon. I haven't had food since breakfast yesterday, and clones eating food doesn't really count since nothing physical gets transferred after they disperse.

Thalia follows my lead, although, a little less ravenously then myself, and before too long, we're done.

"If you don't mind, before we go and start your training, I need to go and talk to Ajihad about some matters of utmost importance." I say while standing up.

Thalia stands after me, nodding her head in consent.

"Can I know what some of it is about?" she asks.

"You know how my clone told you yesterday about the history of the riders in this world?" I receive an affirmative before I continue. "The newest rider might either be on his way here now, and might only be a few days away at most, or, the courier of the dragon egg has only just disappeared, meaning that there might be a full six months before the rider arrives here, giving us plenty of time to set up many of the plans I've been making ever since I landed in this world.

"What do you plan on doing?"

"I'll let you know depending on what Ajihad's answer is. At that point, I'll decide on a thorough, in depth training schedule, or a blaster training schedule, focusing on the main points and getting you battle passable in the remaining time we have left. Either way, we'll get you trained up to what is needed to survive in this world, so don't worry too much.

"Alright…?"

The statement turns into a question at the very end, but before she can say anything else, I tell her that I'll meet her at the training grounds, and shoot skyward, even though there is no sky inside of a mountain. I fly along at blistering speeds, activating my Sharingan to make sure I don't crash into anything as I fly towards the Varden leader's strong room. Soon enough, I am in the hall to Ajihad's study, and I slow down before teleporting the final distance to just inside the door, completely bypassing the guards posted outside.

Inside, Ajihad spins around, hand grasping the handle of his sword when he senses my presence, but once he sees who it is, he relaxes.

"What do you have need to speak to me for?" Ajihad asks, his deep voice filling the chamber.

"I need to know," I begin. "When was the last time you heard from Arya, the dragon egg courier?"

Ajihad looks startled for a moment before his face takes on its normal stony visage.

"Three months ago, we lost contact with her," he says. "She had been using scrying spells of a specific form to keep in contact with us once a week. Last we knew, she was on the eastern edge of Du Weldenvarden, preparing to head southeast towards Surda. In her last report, she told me of her fears of being followed, though she did not know what it was that was doing so."

"It was a Shade, named Durza that was following her." I interrupt. Ajihad's eyes widen, and I decide to elaborate a bit. "To the best of my knowledge, the Shade has been able to turn all the Urgals into nothing more than puppets to be manipulated as he sees fit. It is a passive control, so that the Urgals only see him as being worthy to lead them. Other than that, they decide to follow his orders, but even then, they do not truly know what it is that they are told to do. As such, Durza used the Urgals to ambush Arya and her two guards. The guards died defending her, and Arya's last ditch attempt to keep the egg out of the hands of the Black King, used almost all of her magic to transport the egg to Brom in Carvahall, the closest person to her who she knew she could trust.

"Fortunately, her aim was a couple of leagues off, and landed in a clearing near a young farm boy named Eragon while he was out hunting for his uncle and cousin and himself. Two days later, the egg hatched for him. But Arya was taken prisoner by Durza, but she made the Urgals feel the cost of taking her, even though she was greatly weakened after her great feat of magic. As of now, either Durza is in the midst of torturing her and administering the Skilna Bragh to bring about her eventual death. Thankfully, Eragon, having become a Rider, will randomly receive visions, and his first five have been of Arya, and though she doesn't know it, and he isn't certain of it, they have touched minds.

"Though neither of them know it, they have created a bond to the other that is nearly unmatchable in anything else, save the bond between Rider and dragon. I trust you will not tell them either."

The last sentence is more of a command than a request. Though, that last bit about their minds and the bonds threw me for a loop, because during that time, I felt like someone else was running my body, and then smoothly reinserted me back into control. It was disconcerting, but I hid it thoroughly.

"So when can we expect Brom and Eragon?"

"If my calculations are correct, and my memory is not trying to make me look like a fool, we have two months to prepare for an army to slam into our door. Three at the latest. But do not expect Brom to arrive here at all. He has died. He died defending the Rider from a killing blow from an Urgal in an ambush."

Ajihad is silent a moment, obviously mourning his old friend. Then:

"So it will only be Eragon and his dragon then?"

"No, Eragon will be bringing Arya with him, and when he arrives, Arya will have at most a couple of days left to live as the Skilna Bragh works its deadly ways. But he will also arrive with Murtagh, son of Morzan."

Ajihad's eyes widen, before they narrow in anger, obviously some memories being brought back by the Forsworn's name.

"Now this is where things get complicated. Do not judge Murtagh by his father's actions. In my land, the sins of the father being visited upon the son has not been performed in a couple hundred years, and has been made illegal for almost twice that long. But, after the Battle of Farthen Dur as it will come to be known, he will be kidnapped and taken to the Black King, where he will be forced into servitude, bonded to a dragon, and then sent out as the King's right hand. Everything he will do, will be against his will. He wants nothing more than for the King to be killed, by any means necessary. But when he is in servitude to the King, he will be looking for any way out that he can have.

"Even then, when the Varden moves against the Empire overtly, he will be forced to kill King Hrothgar."

"What?!" Ajihad exclaims. "And you would let this come to pass?!"

"Yes." I reply, my voice calm and my face hard as steel. That seems to stop Ajihad short on the tirade he had presumably been about to go on.

"Because after his death, and Orik's ascension to King, all the clans will come together, save one, who will then be exiled, and the full might of the dwarves will be brought to bear upon the Empire. But even after all this, the Black King will not be done with him."

"What do you mean?"

"Months later, he will be forced to kidnap your daughter, and take her to the King for interrogation by the King himself."

I pause as Ajihad begins swearing fervently, clearly upset with my words the longer I go on.

"Fear not, because your daughter will not break, no matter what Galbatorix may do. And Murtagh will eventually find himself changing just enough to help your daughter by giving her encouragement, and helping to heal her wounds when Eragon finally defeats Galbatorix. After that, he gives Eragon the True Name of the ancient language so that Eragon can lift all of the enchantments that Galbatorix had placed throughout Algaesia throughout his lifetime. In the end, Murtagh will have redeemed himself, though he still sends himself into exile, hoping to learn who he truly is so that one day he may return and be a better man than his father ever could have hoped to have been."

The study is quiet, and I watch the dark skinned man in front of me as he begins pacing, his hands twisting around each other. Soon enough, he looks up, walks over to me, and grabs my shoulders.

"Promise me that you will keep my daughter safe from the son of Morzan when he comes to take her!" He yells at me.

I can see the fear and anger hiding in his eyes, and even though from the outside he merely looks like he is merely upset, but I can tell that on the inside, he is about to break at the mere thought of his daughter being tortured.

"No." I hold up a hand, stalling the imminent explosion that my simple response has brought about.

"If I prevent her capture, it may take the Varden months longer to prepare themselves to take the capitol city of Uru-baen, and by then, the King may have the city so well guarded that no siege would be able to stand long enough to actually break the city. It would also prevent Murtagh from having a chance to redeem himself. And even though it is not set in stone, I have a feeling that your daughter and Murtagh will one day come together in marriage and I know that even though you won't be around for them, I imagine that you will be glad when you get to look down on your grandchildren."

Again, that force seems to overtake my body, making me say those things about Murtagh and Nasuada marrying and having children. And then I'm back in control of my body, and Ajihad is none the wiser for it.

"I'm sorry that I must be the bearer of bad news, but such is the burden of one who knows too much. As things stand, I have a student to get to now that is in need of training, and probably the next lesson is going to be in patience."

Ajihad turns away, one hand holding his head, the other waving for me to go.

"I trust that everything I have told you will not go any farther than between the two of us." I say, just loud enough for him to hear. "I will not make you swear in the ancient language to keep it a secret, I will merely trust in you as a man to keep it a secret."

With that, I teleport out of the room, reappearing just outside of the reach of the guards outside Ajihad's study, and quietly walk away, ignoring the guards fumbling their weapons. Once I'm out of their sight, I take off, flying slowly and quietly, contemplating what that force made me say to Ajihad those couple of times.

_"__Thankfully, Eragon, having become a Rider, will randomly receive visions, and his first five have been of Arya, and though she doesn't know it, and he isn't certain of it, they have touched minds. Though neither of them know it, they have created a bond to the other that is nearly unmatchable in anything else, save the bond between Rider and dragon. I trust you will not tell them either."_

_"…__and I know that even though you won't be around for them, I imagine that you will be glad when you get to look down on your grandchildren."_

Whatever the entity that forced me to say those things is, it's most definitely more powerful than any of the bijuu contained within me. Even though it only took control of me for a few seconds, it's left me feeling slightly burnt out, slightly more the second time. Thinking back on all of my knowledge regarding deities, I realize that one had to have used my body for a few seconds. Since I'm not a demigod, or a legacy, or have any relations to the mythological, my body isn't prepared to stand up to having a divine presence in my body for extended periods of time.

That's the only explanation I have, I was possessed by some god, and my body's not ready for it, so it started giving out under the pressure. Not reassuring. Thankfully, my healing factor is already taking care of it, but it hurts just enough to where I notice it, though it is steadily lessening.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm landing in front of Thalia on the training field, just as my healing factor finishes the divine damage.

I'm looking at my feet, still thinking, when I hear Thalia calling my name.

"Yeah?" I say, looking up at her.

"I was asking you what you wanted me to do first for training, Kyrios." Thalia said.

"Ah," I say. "We're going to work on endurance first. I want you to run around the perimeter of the training field for as long as you can. Don't stop until you're either falling asleep running, or your legs give out from underneath you."

Thalia blinks in surprise.

"That's it?"

"For now. Get going. I'll have a clone keep count for me, I need to practice with my new weapon."

"Oh yeah!" she exclaims. "What's your new weapon? I wanna watch you practice with it if you don't mind before I get to running."

I sigh, exasperated, but I agree to let her watch me. Concentrating a bit, a clone bursts into existence before it gave me a mock salute.

"Let's do _that _one." I say to my clone.

"Seriously?" it asks. "That's a cliché fight."

"Get over it. Transform already."

"Fine, fine."

With that, my clone held up his hands in a unique hand sign, and before our eyes, his form seems to melt and reshape, growing in height, the fingers becoming longer, thinner, sharper, and sliver with bands of metal going down the extremely long forearms, with hinged bars connecting to a metal collar on the neck. Knee high boots fade into being, while the white shorts fade to black before receding into what looks like a thong with a strap extending up around the left shoulder while pieces of fabric extend from his waist looking to all the world like torn bat wings. A white face mask appears to have been sewn onto his skull, with very large, triangular, sharp teeth showing out from the mouth. An orange nose sticks out several inches, and the tongue flicks out to lick one of the hand blades.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Thalia shrieks.

"Cold blooded killer, Jack the Ripper," I say. "A character in one of my favorite mangas. In that series, he is a pre-demon, meaning that he has begun killing, and then eating the souls of humans to gain power, at the cost of losing his own humanity."

"A-a-are you serious?!"

"Completely. This should be a good warm up. After that, you are to start your training that I gave you."

Around us, the men training on the field have stopped, and are looking ready to charge my clone.

"Don't worry gentlemen, this is merely a training exercise for myself!" I call out loudly making sure everyone on the field can hear me. "I would appreciate it if you all kept back by at least forty paces!"

I turn to Thalia and say, "That's forty yards for you."

She merely nods, before winds kick up and send her flying back before she stops and settles on the ground, just in front of the line of men.

I nod, turning back to face my clone, I smirk, asking him if he is ready.

"More, POWER!" it yells in response.

"Wow, you're really getting into this, aren't you?" I sigh. "Oh well, I guess I need to get my weapon out."

With that, my left hand creeps up and around to the seal matrix sitting on my upper arm, just below my shoulder joint, circulating chakra into that hand. When my hand finally touches the seal, there is a huge burst of smoke, temporarily covering my form as a weapon smacks into my palm. I grasp it, hefting it comfortably as the seals I worked into it as I made it makes it incredibly light for my hands alone, while burning whoever else dares to touch it without permission, in addition to becoming impossibly heavy.

The smoke quickly dissipates, and I hear a round of gasping from the men around me. I don't blame them, as now I wield a scythe whose handle is metal, and straight, and around seven feet in length, with it gently becoming thicker where the blade extends from. A huge, red and black zig-zagged pattern scythe blade extends almost eight feet from the handle, and curving almost three feet down parallel to the handle completes the image.

I twirl it around in my left hand before switching it to my right, before switching it back again and swinging it to land in the crook between my neck and shoulder, with my elbow keeping the blade from toppling over to my other side from its own weight.

"Ready, Ripper?" I ask, smirking cheekily at my demonic looking clone.

His only response was a roar before charging in a zig-zag pattern towards me at speeds I doubted an elf could keep up with, let alone match. About thirty feet from me, he leaps up into the air.

"Alright then, let's get this party started!" I say, twirling my scythe around my neck, blocking Ripper's attacks that he launches with deadly force, before spinning my body around to continue blocking his attacks as I gracefully dodge in and out of his guard.

We move towards the wall nearby, and I trick Ripper into slashing a chunk out of the wall before I smash it apart with a back slash of my weapon. Right as he comes up, I turn around, blocking his hands as he tries to slash at me from both sides before spinning the scythe so fast that it rebounds of the ground, smashing him in the jaw before smacking back into my hands, just in time to catch his blade hands in the crook of blade and handle, and smash them into the ground, sending rubble flying into the air as a small crater is dug from the impact. I jump back, even as Ripper charges through the rubble, continuously clawing at me even as I deflect all his blows.

Soon enough, we are back where we started, and I'm standing my ground, deflecting his claws so that they go on either side of me, but never letting a single one land. Before long, I get the opening I've been waiting for.

As Ripper goes in for a power strike with both arms, I jump over them, landing one foot on his head before kicking off, causing him to become unbalanced, flailing as he tries to get it back. I land a couple dozen feet away before turning around and running back at him, and just before I make it there, he jumps almost fifty feet in the air, and I follow him up there. He manages to contort himself to turn around in midair, and I slide under his right arm, holding my weapon out, the blade catching him in the abdomen before completely slicing through him.

His bisected body falls to the ground, but just before it hits, it explodes in a burst of smoke, just before I land. I swing the scythe to be resting comfortably on my shoulder, this time on my right side, and look at the crowd around me, not out of breath in the slightest.

All of them are slack-jawed, pale faced, and I see that more than one have pissed themselves… if the stench is anything to go by at least. Then I turn to look at Thalia…

Only to see her wearing the _biggest_ shit-eating grin I've ever seen on a person's face.

"Okay!" she yells over at me. "If that's what you can do, I can't wait for when you teach me how to take on shit like that!"

I begin laughing, even as all the men begin gaping at her while the group of men around her begin edging away from her. After a couple of minutes, the men begin shuffling away, going mostly towards the exits in the direction of the city. Once most of them are gone, I look at Thalia before jerking my head in the direction of the other side of the training field. She huffs, rolls her eyes, and then begins jogging. Once I've got a clone to watch her, I flash over to the center of the field, sealing away my scythe in the process, and float into the air before beginning my meditation.

I sigh to myself, opening up my mind and body to the energy of every living thing around me, and begin absorbing minor parts of said energy. A part of my mind notes that Thalia has significant amounts of energy, more so than almost any other being I've come in contact with so far since I got here. That said, I begin casting my mind out from my body, latching my mind onto the other living beings that I've come in contact with, I begin spreading my presence out in a single direction, leapfrogging from one mind to another, using minor parts of those minds to keep my mind in one piece, and allow me the range necessary to reach the person that I wish to reach.

_'__The Butterfly Effect.'_ I think to myself. _'It is very ironic that no elf has thought to do what I am doing for long distance communication. So long as your mind is powerful enough to do what I am doing, and subtle enough not to get caught, it is very easy.' _

Though this part of my mind is not really concentrating on what the rest of it is doing, it is steadily regulating the energy consumption and gathering only as much as needed. But I have to do it quickly, or else I will pull too much energy from every living thing, and everything will begin to die, or tire, depending on what I am pulling from.

As my mind speeds out, covering league after league of distance, I know that the hardest part is yet to come. I have to pierce the wards of Du Weldenvarden. Something that not even Galbatorix, possibly the most powerful sorcerer of all time in this world has been unable to do, even after a full century of trying to do so. Oh well. Time to be the first.

With that, my mind brushed up against the wards of The Guarding Forest, and began prodding them. I spent several minutes running up and down the length of the wards, looking for the weakness in it as a whole, and by the individual wards themselves. Then I realized something.

All of the wards converged on one specific point, one living being. In my mind's eye, all of the wards looked like multi-colored strings that were interwoven to form a beautiful tapestry of energy and life. But where the converged, all that color deepened until it was pitch black in the very center of the convergence. Without a second thought, I dove into the blackness, and almost immediately was met with a vast consciousness. But it was slow, deliberate, and most of all, ancient.

Suddenly, it began accelerating, until it was thinking just as fast as I was, and it turned the full force of its mind to bear on mine.

_'__Who dares to attempt to bypass the wards of my forest?' _ it asked.

_'__One who seeks to warn the Queen of the Elves of the danger that is growing ever nearer while she mourns the death of her still living child.' _I reply.

_'__And who might this "one" be?'_

_'__I am the one, Lady Menoa,' _ I say, realizing now who this ancient being is. _'And I go by the alias of Dragon, milady.'_

_'__You dare assume the name of the race of beings who were slain by the Egg-Breaker?!'_

_'__Yes. As of now, I am with the Dwarves, and the Varden. I am not of this world in the same way that Brightsteel is not of this world. As such, I do not wish for my given name to be known among everyone that I meet. Also, a war is coming, a war of which likeness has never been seen before. And in order to get everyone to be on their toes, is to take the name of the thing that they fear the most as a race. Since I am with the Dwarves and the Varden, who fear Shruikan, a dragon, I take on the name of the race of dragons, in order to make everyone uncomfortable, and begin readying for war sooner, so that more people may live when all is said and done.'_

She pulls back from my mind slightly, and is quiet for several moments, contemplating what I have said to her. Finally, she extends her mind towards mine once more, and speaks.

_'__I wish to see your memories, and know how you know these things.'_

_'__Then follow me into my mind.' _I say.

With that, I tug her consciousness into my mind, where she takes the form of the tree her mind inhabits. Immediately, I begin whisking her through light-years of space in mere seconds in my mind, headed towards the planet where I keep all of my memories. Even though she doesn't have any eyes, I can tell that she is looking around in wonder at my mind-scape.

_"__What is this place?" _she asks.

_"__I modeled my mind-scape after the space between worlds. Part of that reason is the fact that despite my mere eighteen years of age, my mind is incredibly vast and complex. That and the fact that not even Galbatorix could navigate my mind, seeing as how I have pitted my mind with false worlds, systems, galaxies, pocket dimensions, traps, black holes, super-dense stars, dying stars, and technologies so advanced that they make magic seem obsolete." _I explain. _"Also, if I have not let you into my mind, and am not showing you around, you will never move around my mind without first taking the time necessary to figure out how to do so, by which time, I should have removed you from my mind. If I have not, and you have figured out how to move around, you will more than likely find yourself subjected to several of the millions of traps set in my mind."_

_"__It would seem that your mind is even better protected from outside interference than Du Weldenvarden." _She mused. _"But why guard it so harshly?"_

_"__Because, the future is not something that should be lightly bandied about." _I reply, my mental voice rough, and hard.

_"__Then why do you wish to tell me the future?" _she asks.

_"__Because I know that you will not participate in this war more than once, and in order for the war to be won, you MUST be willing to do what I show you." _I say, knowing that what I say to her and show her now may be the tipping point that expedites the tipping point of the war.

With that said, we come in sight of my memory world. It is huge, about the size of the sun, but the difference is that this world is completely solid, not made of gas at all. And surrounding it are hundreds of metal moons, colored gold. Each moon is about the size of the earth's moon, and they are all stationary relative to the planet, despite the fact that they are all about the same distance from the planet as where Venus would be, making a sphere of metal around the stony planet. Further out from that, even in distance from the planet as Mars from the sun, is another sphere of metal, this one made up of satellites as big as Pluto, each of them crackling with energy, a transparent force field of anti-energy utterly annihilating any piece of matter coming in contact with it.

Beyond that is a massive sphere comprised of asteroids, each as big as Staten Island, tumbling around, with the occasional dwarf planet rolling around somewhere throughout.

Looking over at the apparition of the Menoa tree, I could tell that she was shocked by what she was seeing.

_"__I sense such power…" _she murmurs. _"But how is this all possible?"_

_"__You will understand soon."_ I say. _"Are you willing to learn?"_

_"__I am." _She replies.

_"__Then take my hand, and trust me." _I say.

With that, her image begins flowing, like running paint as her tree body melts into a more humanoid form, though she keeps her bark as her skin, and her hair became like feather grass, with maple leaves covering her modesty. Once she is finished, she takes my hand, and I lead us forward, skirting through the asteroids, narrowly avoiding collisions that would have pulverized anyone stupid enough to try to get through without my taking them through. Several minutes later, we are clear of the asteroids, and flying towards the anti-energy fields.

_"__Prepare to feel very dizzy."_ I said.

_"__What?!" _

Before she could properly prepare herself, I expelled vast quantities of anti-energy from my body, creating a cocoon around myself and the Menoa tree, and then adjusted it to match the energy frequency of the defense net. When I was done doing that, I looked at Menoa's face, and saw that her barky skin was not very brown, but looked more green than anything. Oh well. A moment longer, and we had burst through the energy field, and were flying towards the moon sized ships.

Letting the anti-energy field dissipate from around us, I waited until we were within shouting distance of the nearest ship before stopping.

**"****Halt!" **it boomed out in a bone shaking bass voice. **"Please state name and business in this sector if you value your mental existence. If you do not state it within thirty seconds, it will be assumed that you are hostile, and will be annihilated with extreme prejudice."**

_"__Name, Dragon, business, memory upload to friendly party. Friendly Party's name is Menoa Tree, business, memory upload." _I say.

**"****Voice recognized, name recognized, business recognized. Friendly Party added to database. Determine Menoa Tree's security clearance please." **

_"__Security clearance D-rank." _I say.

**"****Security clearance saved. You may proceed, and have a nice day."**

With that, we continued on, flying down to the surface of the planet, landing with a bone jarring thud. I watched as Menoa looked around, obviously trying to find signs of my memories. She was obviously disappointed when all she saw was a barren plain stretching off for as far as she could see.

_"__Where are your memories?" _she asked.

_"__We are standing on them." _I replied.

Looking down and willing it to happen, a tendril grew from the ground. Menoa watched it warily until it had grown high enough to touch her forehead. She jerked for a second, before her eyes glazed over as the entire planet lit up from within. I looked down at the now transparent ground as it flashed through the full spectrum of neon colors, lighting up the space for a few light years immediately around the planet.

Seconds later, the tendril detached, and went back into the ground as the planet ceased glowing. That done, I grabbed Menoa's hand, and teleported us off the planet, back to the point where we entered my mindscape. With that, I led us out until we were merely touching minds, as we had been before I showed her my memories of this world.

_"__How did we get out of there so fast?" _she inquired.

_"__I performed a type of instantaneous travel called teleportation. It allows me to cover vast distances almost instantly." _I replied.

_"__Then why did you not employ it to get to the surface of the planet of your memories?" _she countered.

_"__I didn't because if I had done that, the defenses in my mind surrounding the memories would have utterly annihilated the world while enacting an anti-teleportation field, ensuring that nothing would escape the onslaught." _I stated. _"Also, in so doing, it would destroy all of my memories."_

_"__You are truly dedicated to preserving this future that you have shown me, aren't you?" _she asked after a moment's pause.

_"__Of course." _I reply. _"Wouldn't you if you were in my position?"_

She pauses for a moment, and I feel her contemplating my question, even as she reaches out for a specific mind that is hidden within Du Weldenvarden.

_"__Yes, I would." _She replies. With that, another mind comes into contact with my own, a haunting, sad melody trilling through the stream of consciousness. Almost immediately, it attempted to stab into my mind, but instead of hitting the mental barriers they were obviously expecting, they simply went straight through from one side of my mind to the other, too fast to catch a glimpse of anything important. Not that they would have anyways.

This went on for several moments before I tired of the endless process. In one massive wave, I engulfed the strangers mind, immobilizing it, separating the source of its magic from the rest of its mind, ensuring that I wasn't cursed, while also allowing it to think for itself.

_"__What are you?!" _the mind, obviously female from the pitch of the mental voice, exclaimed, panic beginning to take over.

_"__I am simply a man who is trying to save the Queen from making a fool of herself in the future." _I reply.

She pauses for a moment, not believing me.

_"__Menoa, may I ask you to vouch for me in this matter?" _I ask.

A moment later, Menoa's consciousness brushes against my own, trickling through to touch Islanzadi's mind, and tells her to trust me, and that she was the one that allowed me to contact her through the wards.

Finally, Islanzadi relaxes, though she is still wary of me, simply because of the fact that I have managed to subvert her magic from her mind, along with the fact that I managed to work my way through the wards of the forest. As such, I am the first to ever have done so, ensuring that she remembers me.

_"__If I give you back your access to magic, do you swear to not harm me, or those whom I represent and protect, in any way, shape or form, either by your own hand, or through others, either through mental, verbal, physical, or emotional means?" _I ask.

She pauses, still wary of me, and now even more wary than ever.

_"__Why would I swear something like that?" _she hesitantly asks.

_"__Because I fear what you would do to me and mine if I do not exact this promise from you." _Is my reply, my voice harder than steel, and colder than ice.

Islanzadi seems to contemplate my conditions for several minutes before she begins speaking in the ancient language. I am sure to hide my feelings of apprehension from her, though another part of my consciousness asks Menoa to ensure that she is speaking an oath fulfilling my conditions.

After her oath is confirmed, I drop the bomb on the Queen, and wait for several minutes as I listen to and feel the turmoil running through her head.

_"__The Varden did not know of this until I told them yesterday. Do not blame them for not telling you. They assumed the same as you when they ceased receiving communications with the egg transporters. It is only through means I cannot reveal to you at this time do I know of her survival. Though at this stage in time, she slips closer and closer to death, though the new Rider will soon rescue her in the next two months." _I inform her.

She pauses again, unsure of what I am telling her. Sensing her disquiet, Menoa slips into the conversation for a moment and informs Islanzadi in the ancient language that I speak the truth.

_"__What do you mean by saying 'She slips closer to death'?" _she asks.

With that, I tell her what I told Ajihad, though I am sure to leave out the part about the bond between Eragon and Arya. I am unsure how she would react to that.

_"__Now if you will excuse me, I have needs to talk to The Cripple Who Is Whole." _I say, ignoring her outcry of surprise over me knowing about that being. With that, I disconnect from her mind, and stretch my mind out looking for one specific mind within the forest.

With help from the Menoa Tree, it doesn't take me long to find his mind, and, as quickly as I can, I invade his mind, dump my memories of what I have told Islanzadi along with a few other tidbits of information into his mind before withdrawing and shooting my consciousness back across Algaesia to my own body.

Even though the process of coming back to my body is much quicker than the process of going out from it, it still takes me almost a full ten minutes to separate my mind and energy from all the millions of living creatures I connected to in order to communicate as I did through those wards. When I open my eyes, I look down, realizing that as I had meditated, my altitude had increased until I was almost a full mile above the training fields. Far below me, I can see Thalia passed out on the ground. Quickly flying back down, I give a questioning look to my clone, who simply shrugs before dissipating.

I quickly sit down on the ground, stunned. I had been gone for over four hours, most of which Thalia had spent running. As a matter of fact, she had only just passed out from exhaustion not five minutes before I came back to my body. She probably could have run longer if she hadn't been pushing herself so hard, along with the fact that she had probably run for longer when she was on the run back in her world before she got turned into a tree.

Looking over at her, I can see that her hair, and her shirt are soaked in her sweat, and though I can't see it, I can tell since she is lying down that the backs of her legs are soaked in her sweat as well. Creating a clone, I send it to Ajihad, asking him where he would like us to sleep for the night, seeing as how Thalia and my clone spent the previous night sleeping in the mess hall. Within fifteen minutes, my clone dissipates, telling me that we may use the Dragonhold until the new Rider arrives.

That done, I get up and walk over to Thalia, and gently pick her up, ignoring the stickiness that her sweat provides her clothing with before carefully lifting off the ground and making my way through the air to the Dragonhold. Once there, I silently walk into the cave where Eragon will sleep in a couple of months, before laying her on the bed, taking utmost care to make sure she does not wake.

Knowing how unpleasant it can be to wake up in dirty, sweat stained clothes, I carefully undress her, using a minor genjutsu to make sure she stays asleep as I am doing this. Though I can't help noticing that even though she has very soft, very prominent feminine curves, there is a hard layer of muscles underneath her velvety soft skin, deceiving any onlookers. I make sure not to stare, though I can't help but notice that her skin has an even tan completely over her body, even over the places one would normally see bikini lines. Shaking my head to clear it of the thought, I make sure to avoid touching her inappropriately, despite what I am doing while she sleeps.

Creating one last clone for the day, I give it her clothes before covering her in a blanket and then strip out of my own clothes to give to my clone to take to be washed. With a wave, it disappears out of the room, heading to find a bathing room to clean our clothes in. Sighing to myself, I lay down, wrapped in my blanket, on the floor, which isn't that uncomfortable compared to some of the places and things I've had to sleep on in the past in my home world.

About an hour later, my clone comes back with our clothes still soaking wet before using a minor wind style technique to dry them out thoroughly. I put on my own clothes after being given them, and then carefully redress Thalia in her clothes before lying back down, this time on top of it instead of wrapped inside of it. I am normally very warm before going to bed, leading me to lie spread eagled to try and dissipate some of the heat. After a while, I turn over and stare at Thalia.

There is something about her that is attractive to me, and it's not her body, though that's surely a fantastic added bonus. But it's something other than that. She is intriguing to me. She does not seem to fear heights, whereas in the books, she was infamous for her fear of heights, even if she's on the ground, such as a mountain. On top of that, she seems to have far more of a gentle side to her than was ever portrayed in the books, though I think part of that is the fact that I seemed to have overwhelmed her with all the information I gave her about her world and everything that happens in what was once her future.

On top of that, in the books, she seemed to have a heavy distrust of people in general, and males in particular, even before she became a Hunter, with the only boy she really loved after Luke being Jason, but that's only because the latter was her younger brother. Though one thing that matches up between the Thalia that I know, and the Thalia in the books, is her temper, which she certainly got from the King of the Gods. But other than that, only her looks could be considered the same as described in the books, but even that's different because she's about three or four years older than the books say she was when she came out of her tree…

And at this point, I tell myself to stop thinking about it since all I'm really doing is confusing myself.

Turning my head to the side, I look over at her, and watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps peacefully, not even twitching in her sleep, indicating how exhausted she must have been. I turn my attention to her face, which just so happens to be facing my own. Her brows, normally either turned down into a cute V shape in anger and frustration, or concentration are smoothed out into a gently upwards curving line. Long lashes brush against her upper cheeks, and I know that in wakefulness, they provide a stunning contrast and frame to her bright, lively, electric blue eyes that never stop moving, even if it is only a twitch to look at this or that.

Her nose gently slopes down, with the tip having a gentle upturn that provides yet another "cute" factor. Underneath that, her lips, normally drawn into a thin line in concentration or frustration, are relaxed, letting them fill out to their normal proportions in a soft bow shape. Her cheek bones show softly, slightly higher than normal on her cheeks, giving her an aristocratic, or royal, look.

Of course, at this point, he brow furrows, and she mumbles in her sleep. I catch the words "gods," "dragon," and a few others that are too slurred to make sense of easily. With that, I turn over, determined to get some sleep myself, seeing as how I've personally been up for almost three days straight. With that, I close my eyes, and relax. Even then, it takes me an additional hour to finally fall asleep. But when I do, it is not the peaceful nothingness I've come to expect from my sleep over the past eleven years or so. I personally have not had a dream in almost eleven years now. Most commonly, I will spend the entire night completely passed out. I fall asleep at night, and wake up in the morning, with no recollection of anything happening in the intervening time.

Now though, something does disturb my sleep. At first I think that it is morning again, but the blindingly white light tells me otherwise.

_"__Open your eyes, hero." _I hear. The voice is deep, powerful, and above all, holy sounding. How it _sounded _holy, I have no idea, all I know is that it did.

Slowly, with a hand raised to shield my eyes from the light, I look towards the source, only to see simply a ball of light, hanging there in empty space.

"A-a-are you…" I pause and gulp heavily. "God?"

_"__No child," _it said. _"I am merely a messenger for Him. I am here to tell you of your mission in this world."_


End file.
